US Military is World's Biggest Polluter

See Part 1.

I recently wrote about the Native efforts to remediate a huge groundwater contamination plume under Los Alamos National Labs in northern New Mexico, where the same old story of decades of dumping known toxic material directly into the environment has left the local tribes with a dangerous water supply and crippling health conditions. New Mexico is also home to millions of acres of radiation contaminated land, long used for nuclear weapons testing, as well as dangerous uranium mines long-abandoned on Navajo land. Radiation contamination has been even more of an acute issue in South Pacific islands, which were also used for nuclear testing in the 40's and 50's. Bikini Atoll is still uninhabitable, and residents of Guam and the Marshall Islands are diagnosed with cancers at an alarmingly high rate to this day.

The environmental toll to Iraq by U.S. operations there has been completely devastating. Depleted uranium used in shell casings was spread around in truly astonishing amounts, vaporizing on impact and travelling far and wide on wind currents around the middle east and into parts of Europe. Depleted uranium has been responsible for widespread sickness and horrendous birth defects throughout affected areas, and continues to be of major concern. The country has also experienced 90% desertification due to the war's devastation, putting an end to almost all agriculture and leaving the country with massive food shortages. Huge open-air burn pits operated by U.S. forces to dispose of trash and wreckage released large amounts of toxic substances into the environment as well. American soldiers were also subject to the effects of these pollutants, suffering elevated cancer rates along with Iraqi civilians.

Burn Pit just off the runway at Bagram Airfield, Iraq.

Despite decades of irresponsible and criminal pollution of an unprecedented scale, the military shows no sign of stopping now. The Navy is currently carrying out plans to dump 20,000 tons of pollutants into North Pacific coastal waterways, including explosives and heavy metals. They are also releasing tons of heavy metals per year into Puget Sound on an annual basis. A Navy statement to address concerns of this dumping makes blatantly clear that the military will continue this insane behavior, claiming that heavy metals and depleted uranium are of little concern to health or environment, flying in the face of literal mountains of evidence and destroyed human lives to the contrary. If we cannot find some way to reign in this Nero-esque madness, our children and our planet will suffer heavy consequences in the decades to come.

Navy dumping in Puget Sound has visible effects on water quality.