From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 19:06:40 EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Vieques, Puerto Rico HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- PIP Denounces Federal Agency Report On Vieques Soil By Proviana Colon Diaz November 14, 2001 Copyright � 2001 PRWOW News Service. All rights reserved. Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) Environmental Issues Advisor Jorge Fernandez Porto denounced Wednesday that a report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which concluded a non-hazardous presence of heavy metals in the soil of Vieques, failed to take into consideration samples of the soil where civilians live. Fernandez Porto added that this is the third time the ATSDR files reports with favorable results for the continuing presence of the U.S. Navy in Vieques. PIP Vice President Maria De Lourdes Santiago questioned how could it be possible for Gov. Sila Calderon to accept the test results filed by ATSDR as true, without complaining. The latest report, filed Oct. 23 and titled "Focused Petitioned Public Health Assessment Isla de Vieques Bombing Range, Vieques, Puerto Rico," concluded that exposition to heavy metals, such as lead, chromium, magnesium, and arsenic, in the Vieques soil "results in no damaging effect to the health of children and adults who could even accidentally eat the soil." However, to reach such conclusions, the ATSDR failed to study any samples from the soil of the civil population, Fernandez Porto said. Instead, samples dating back to 1972, when the Navy was still practicing in Culebra, samples from 1998 when soil was taken from the area where the airport is located and where no one lives now, and other samples taken by Navy contractors in 1999 from Camp Garcia were the ones used for the study. For the environmental scientist, who has conducted similar studies in the soil of Vieques and has found high levels of heavy metals in the soil, the ATSDR results are unacceptable. "None of the samples were taken from the civil population area. It is thus impossible from a scientific point of view to establish that the civil soil is not contaminated when there are no samples from the population zone," Fernandez Porto said. The PIP, with the studies it posses that prove the contrary, will refute the ATSDR as established by law that they have 30 days to refute the information, Fernandez Porto said. Esta informaci�n es cortes�a de: Comit� de Nueva York Partido Independentista Puertorrique�o (212) 330-8258 www.independencia.net _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
