The PR dump mess

At Issue: The cost of cleaning Puerto Rico Dump is astronomical and way beyond our means.

Our View: NMI must seek major funding for this project from the Department of Defense and EPA.

It wasn’t the people of these islands who placed lethal weapons and chemicals at Puerto Rico Dump. It was the US Department of the Navy as it deploys its CIA operations here to make way for the US Department of Interior in the early sixties.

It stands to reason, therefore, that the NMI must proactively impress upon the US Department of Defense that it finds some $100 million to clean-up the Puerto Rico Dump mess.

For all we know, the chemicals buried underneath the pile of trash must have ruptured and percolated to our fragile water table. Too, the PCB and Agent Orange alleged to have been dumped in various places on island have contributed to contamination of tab water being fed to residential and business sectors. This is a serious health hazard and we need to bring in the culprit to clean-up its own mess.

At issue is the apparent indifference that both DOD and EPA have gone about addressing and resolving this issue. They are not forthcoming with answers that includes the faithful participation of the former. If DOD–through its CIA organ here in the early fifties–dumped those weapons and chemicals at PRD, isn’t it reasonable that it be asked to provide the entire amount to remove their lethal relics?

Indeed, the federal government is notorious in its foot-dragging specialty where it involves large sums of money. It should be clearly understood that the mess was the doing of the famous Navy acronym NTTU who used Marpi and Kagman to train Chinese nationals for some clandestine activity in Asia. Saipan was shut down for the duration–from the end of the hostilities of WWII here until the early sixties–because of CIA activities here.

No matter how this issue is twisted, we must never lose sight of the fact that it was the US Department Defense who dumped these lethal weapons and chemicals in several areas on the island as it hand over control to Interior. We urge local leadership to take this issue right to the front office of DOD and push Friends of the
Commonwealth in the US Congress to force that agency to clean up its mess. After all, nobody deserves being subjected perhaps to an intentional plan to see the effects of deadly chemicals after 50 years. Is it another experiment where islanders are the real guinea pigs? Si Yuus Maase`!