Home
> Authors > Environmental Justice Group Takes Suit To Appeals Court
Environmental Justice Group Takes Suit To Appeals Court
By
Benedict Dimapindan
January 15, 2005
Christine Cordero can put a face on her struggle against environmental
injustice. It belonged to 6-year-old Crizel Jane Valencia, a
little Filipino girl who died of acute leukemia in 2000.
Crizel and her family lived on the site of the former Clark
Air Base, a U.S. military post in the Pampanga province of the
Philippines. Environmental activists claim that she, like many
others, became ill as a result of exposure to the contaminants
and toxic material that the U.S. military left behind after withdrawing
from the Philippines in 1991.
Cordero learned about the little girl’s story when she
attended “Crizel’s World: Butterflies and Benzene,” --
an art exhibit of drawings by the little girl and photos of her
-- in Oakland a few years ago, and has retained the image in
her mind since.
“It always reminds me of what I’m fighting for,” said
Cordero, 24, a national board member of the Filipino/American
Coalition for Environmental Solutions (FACES).
FACES, along with a group of 36 Philippine nationals and Arc
Ecology, a nonprofit environmental safeguards organization, had
filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Navy and Air Force in the Federal
District Court of San Jose on Dec. 2, 2002. They sought to compel
the U.S. government to take responsibility for and to conduct
a preliminary site assessment of the severity of the contamination
on the former Clark Air Base, and the former Subic Naval Base
as well.
The court dismissed the case in 2003 on the grounds that the
law in contention – the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act or CERCLA – does not apply
to former military installations in the Philippines.
Last week, the groups appealed the decision before the Ninth
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Jorge Emmanuel, co-founder and former chairman of FACES, expects
the appeals court to announce its decision on whether the case
may proceed in about two months.
The plea before the appeals court is only the latest chapter
in a long saga for these activists in their quest for environmental
justice in the Philippines.
The volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 led to the closure
of Clark Air Base. Afterwards, those who had been living nearest
the volcano were allowed to resettle in and around the former
base. Clark covered roughly 69,160 acres – almost the size
of Singapore – and an estimated 20,000 families had temporarily
resettled there between 1991 and 1999.
The following year, the Philippine Senate rejected a treaty
that would have allowed continuation of U.S. bases and the Navy
left Subic Naval Base, which was roughly one-third the size of
Clark. With this, nearly a century of U.S. military presence
in the country came to an end.
Only after the military was gone did the extent of the environmental
damage left behind become clear. Over the past dozen years, studies
by the U.S. General Accounting Office, Arc Ecology, several other
environmental firms and independent specialists have chronicled
46 sites of soil and groundwater contamination at the former
bases.
The soil samples analyzed in those reports were found to contain:
polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which may inhibit neurological
development and increase the risk of birth defects; petroleum
hydrocarbons, which may cause liver and kidney damage; and the
carcinogenic agents of JP-4 jet fuel and asbestos. Groundwater
samples reveal traces of: lead, which may lead to central nervous
system damage in children; mercury, which also poisons the nervous
system; benzene, which may lead to leukemia; and toluene, which
may cause liver and kidney damage.
“When you walk around that place, you can feel the thickness
in the air – it’s disgusting,” said Cordero,
who visited Clark and Subic this past August. “To think,
people lived there and drank the water from that ground. Farming
families still farm and bathe in that water.”
In November 1998, the International Institute of Concern for
Public Health released the findings of its survey of the Clark
landscape’s adverse health effects on 13 communities at
and around the former base.
The survey documented several alarming trends, including that
between 24 to 31 percent of the children suffered respiratory
problems; 19 percent of women reported having respiratory problems;
40.6 percent of women had central nervous system problems; and
one-third of women reported reproductive system ailments.
The Philippine Senate Committee Report on Toxic Contamination
in Former U.S. Bases in the Philippines, issued in 2000, reported
similar findings.
According to the report, “environmental damage caused
in Subic and Clark was substantial and had serious adverse ecological,
human health and economic implications for the residents within
the area and for the Philippines in general.” In fact,
the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources,
in the same report, called the contaminated areas “a state
of environmental calamity” and recommended the relocation
of any persons still residing there.
In response, FACES, Arc Ecology and community members filed
a petition in 2000 on behalf of the residents living near the
contaminated areas, urging the Navy and Air Force to conduct
a Preliminary Assessment and Site Inspection pursuant to a stipulation
found in the CERCLA law.
Emmanuel said that under CERCLA, the petition could be requested
for any contaminated area that was “under the control of
the U.S.” He further said that those “bases were
so under U.S. control, Philippine officials couldn’t even
go in without permission.” The American servicemen even
had extra-territorial rights – if they committed a crime,
they’d be tried back in the United States, he added.
“In the law, if there’s a site potentially affecting
a community, those community members can petition for a PA/SI,” Emmanuel
said. “We used that provision. People were already dying – the
evidence is far greater than anything in the U.S.”
“If they could do a PA/SI we could know how and where
the places are contaminated and protect people. This has so much
value because it can protect the community and stop the spread
of contamination. We just need the military to be responsible.”
After the Air Force rejected the request to conduct a PA/SI, and
the Navy failed to respond at all, they filed the lawsuit, which
now awaits a decision from the appeals court.
Contact Benedict Dimapindan at bend1@stanford.edu
