LONG STORY SHORT
An annotated history of the 30-year fight over a single polluted Air Force base.
by Abrahm Lustgarden
ProPublica
December 29, 2017
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE opened in 1941 on a 29,000-acre spit of sand dunes and coastal wetlands along the Gulf of Mexico. It’s been an elite command training and tactical combat center ever since.
It’s where today the Air Force trains F-22 fighter pilots, and holds live-fire air-to-air combat competitions.
This corner of the state is also Florida’s vacationland. Residents and tourists fish and swim in the clear, tropical waters. It’s a public treasure.
In many ways, Tyndall is a typical military base, with typical problems. Which is to say it’s an environmental hazard.
Over the years, machine shops on the base dumped fuels and chemicals. For a while, the Air Force buried drums of waste in dirt trenches and burned explosives in open fields, in the process leaching toxins into the soil and water. Firing ranges left munitions and lead scattered across thousands of acres on the base — including areas that have come to be used by the public.
…
For the entire article, see
https://features.propublica.org/bombs-in-our-backyard/tyndall-air-force-base-history-of-pollution/
--
Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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