ENVIRONMENT: Toxic Waste Lurks off ET Highway

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 27 1996 (IPS) - Science fiction enthusiasts are crazy about “E-T Highway” a desert road near Las Vegas in Nevada, so named because of regular spottings of unidentified flying objects.

But they would be less enthusiastic if they knew that not far from the 157-km stretch of highway – once dubbed ‘the lonliest road in America’ – the U.S. Air Force maintains a base and an incinerator, where toxic materials used to build the aircraft are routinely burned.

Nevada state officials made a gala event out of officially changing the name of Route 375 to “Extra-Terrestrial Highway.” The explanation for the sightings of so-called UFOs lies with the Air Force, which dislosed just over a year ago that it had tested a number of experimental aircraft at the base, code-named ‘Area 51’.

The road’s inaugural celebration included Hollywood stars, but local resident Glenn Campbell who has made a career out of electronically tracking the comings and goings at Area 51, was noticeably absent, despite repeated requests for an invitation.

Campbell (no relation to the singer) fears that the publicity given to the highway by the state will attract “very naive visitors, like the pullers of slot machine handles in Las Vegas, who are not familiar with the tensions and dangers of this remote desert area.”

“To the west of the highway, is a tense and poorly marked military boundary where there are many unresolved civil rights problems,” he adds. “The border is almost impossible to detect in places, and many tourists have inadvertently crossed it and been arrested. Other visitors have had their film confiscated or become stranded on remote dirt roads.”

Former workers at the base alleged that the military had dumped and burned highly toxic waste used in the manufacture of milkitary hardware – such as the Stealth bomber, used in the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War against Iraq.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed last year to conduct an inspection of the base, following a long, legal battle waged on behalf of the workers by Jonathon Turley, a Washington lawyer at George Washington University’s Environmental Crimes Project.

The lawsuit names several toxic chemicals – dioxins, furans, methylethyl ketone, and trichloroethylene – that were brought in regularly by truck from California by a company called NDB. Base workers nicknamed the company “none of your damn business.”

The lawsuit was filed in the federal court in Las Vegas by five anonymous workers at the test site as well as by Helen Frost, wife of a worker who allegedly died from exposure to the incineration of toxic waste.

Frost says that her husband would come from work in the 1980s saying, “my eyes are on fire, my face is on fire.” She says he would feel cold even in the hot desert sun and that air force officials refused to allow him to use protective clothing or equipment.

Towards the end of the 1980s, Frost allegedly lost weight and his stomach swelled. His skin developed weeping sores, and he was almost blind by the time he died in 1989, according to his widow.

An analysis of Frost’s body tissues by Peter Kahn, professor at Rutgers University’s department of biochemestry, showed potentially lethal levels of dioxins and dibenzofurans, according to court documents.

Turley suspects that the new EPA studies will back up Kahn’s analysis, but government officials now refuse to release the inspection results. The two sides are consequently back in court.

The court has ruled that the EPA must release the documents unless the U.S. president deemed that their release would jeopardise national security. Air Force officials lost no time in going to President Bill Clinton who, on Sep. 29, 1995, issued a special order to seal the study.

This was the same day that Clinton publicly condemned his predecessors for not releasing documents on the effects of radiation testing on thousands of unsuspecting U.S. citizens over the last few decades.

Last October, Turley identified one of the anonymous workers — Walter Kasza — two months after he had died. But the lawyer says he would rather go to jail than reveal the identity of his other clients.

The court has ordered Turley not to discuss the case with the media. In addition, all information in Turley’s office has been classified secret, and only his own staff are allowed to enter the room.

Not everybody shares Campbell’s and Turley’s anger. Some people in Nevada who like the publicity the Extra-Terrestrial Highway has created, are looking forward to the release of the new movie ‘Independence Day’, a re-make of the H.G. Wells novel ‘War of the Worlds’. The movie is expected to bring thousands more alien watchers to the town of Rachel – the nearest builtup area to the highway.

“I think there are people and machines from other planets over there. I think our government is working in conjunction with them,” says Rachel resident Pat Travis, who sells ‘Alienburgers’ at the Little A’Le’Inn.