Panama Update Archives
Number 25, December 1998In the wake of failed base negotiations between the United States and Panama, leftover explosives and other environmental contamination of US bombing ranges has become the most pressing issue in bilateral relations. Concern has been fueled by major media attention to the contamination problem, with CBS' Sixty Minutes, ABC News, National Public Radio and New York Times each running feature stories.The Sixty Minutes program focused on leftover bombs and grenades left behind in canal-area firing ranges and chemical weapons tests on San Jose Island. "The current approach by this administration is to try to sneak off into the night, quietly, with as little effort and appropriations as possible," Robert Pastor, who helped negotiate the Canal Treaties when he was an aide to President Jimmy Carter, told Sixty Minutes viewers. Pastor said that this approach violates the treaties.
The program also probed the problem of chemical weapons on San Jose Island in Panama Bay, left over from a testing project during World War II. It showed goats being gassed as part of the project, and interviewed explosives specialist and former Pentagon consultant Rick Stauber, who said unexploded chemical munitions can still be found on San Jose. Stauber also told CBS' Leslie Stahl that he was forbidden from pursuing evidence he'd found of chemical weapons tests on San Jose and elsewhere in Panama.
Most attention now is focused on the three active firing ranges. This is partly because the last dry season during the Canal Treaty -- when range cleanup must take place -- begins in December. According to the Pentagon's policy, that means a plan must be in place by that time.
The United States continues to insist that there is no need for post-1999 cleanup, because it will meet all its treaty obligations by the end of 1999. Military officials say the cleanup will leave about 7,500 acres of the ranges off-limits because lack of technology and rough terrain do not make it "practicable" (the standard set by the Canal Treaty) to remove explosives from that land.
But an unpublished Pentagon report completed in July reveals that the Army Corps of Engineers dumped tons of spoilage -- soil -- from a project to widen the canal onto 92 acres in Empire Range, effectively doing away with any jungle environment that existed on that land. The dumping of soil up to 20 meters deep on land that had been littered with unexploded ordnance puts into doubt the military's argument that it cannot clean up without destroying the canal's watershed. And the Army plans to do the same with that much more land as the widening work continues, according to the report.
The United States has shut Panama out of the cleanup process, violating norms that are routinely followed at closing domestic bases. Panama formally requested participation in the preparation of characterization studies, evaluation of possible cleanup technologies, and risk assessments for the ranges, but they were denied. Despite U.S. promises to share records of explosives and chemical weapons tests conducted by the Tropic Test Center (TTC) on the firing ranges, the records have gathered dust at TTC's headquarters in Arizona. The United States has also ignored Panama's requests for a list of suspected burial sites of chemical weapons in Panama, a list generated in 1993 and routinely disclosed for domestic chemical weapons sites.
A 1997 study contracted by the Army found amounts of TCE in the groundwater at a motor pool in Fort Kobbe at twenty times the level acceptable under federal law. TCE is a toxic and persistent chemical that causes cancer. But the Army's draft report on Kobbe given to Panama said nothing about the high amounts of TCE, and also neglected to mention that its own contractor recommended followup studies of the problem. No followup studies were conducted.
"A Severe Problem on Our Hands"
In early November, U.S. Army South gave the Panamanian government a range transfer plan, slightly revised from a plan rejected by Panama early this year. The United States gave Panama 30 days to comment on the new plan, which calls for clearance of only 524 acres of the ranges -- of a total of more than 18,000 acres which the military's own reports say are contaminated with explosives. Of the 524 acres, about 363 acres will be cleared to one foot below the surface, the depth which will permit walking paths but not vehicles to traverse the soil without danger. The plan includes a provision for the United States to return to the ranges after 1999, but only if the plan's goals are not carried out during the coming dry season.
What does the military propose to do with the remaining lands which still harbor explosives? Put up 790 more warning signs (many already dot the wooded ranges) and build concrete barriers on roads. Consistent with that plan, the U.S. military and Panama's Health Ministry co-sponsored a three-day seminar for residents living near the firing ranges in November, to teach community members how to identify unexploded ordnance.
"Unquestionably, the minute the U.S. military presence ends we're going to have people going into these areas," said Juan Antonio Navarro, a leading Panamanian environmentalist and candidate for mayor of Panama City, "and we're going to have a severe problem on our hands."
A Panamanian who fell victim to an unexploded mortar on Empire Range, losing his left leg and hand, reinforced Navarro's plea. "They should clean it up no matter what it entails," he said. "Even one human life is worth much more than a million dollars, or whatever it might cost."
Top Panamanian officials, including Foreign Minister Jorge Ritter, declared in public in November that the United States must clean up the ranges "completely." A group of nine Panamanian legislators met with Clinton administration officials in Washington in early November to reiterate this position. The group also said the United States must pay $70 million in debts to canal workers before the canal transfer, an indication of what else is on Panama's agenda for U.S. relations.
The range cleanup is an uphill struggle in Washington, where most of Congress is hostile to all overseas base cleanup, and the Pentagon is saying that it can't be done without destroying the canal watershed. The collapse of military base negotiations and subsequent bitterness among some U.S. officials hasn't helped.
On the other hand, the agreement to compensate Canada $100 million for cleanup of former U.S. bases there, which was approved by Congress as part of the Pentagon's budget in September, is an important precedent, especially because there was no legal cleanup obligation specific to Canada. That deal was negotiated by the Clinton administration contingent on Congressional approval.
On the issue of chemical weapons, meanwhile, the government of Panama deposited its ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) with the UN in late September. On November 16 and 17, Panama attended the Conference of Party States for the first time, which was established by the CWC to address compliance with the Convention. There it pressed its case with the United States, Great Britain and Canada for cleanup of San Jose Island. The UK and Canada officially responded to earlier inquiries from Panama about San Jose.
The United States, meanwhile, appears to be acting independently of the Panamanian government, by working with the island's private owners. Before hurricanes Georges and Mitch struck, U.S. Army engineers were slated to go to San José for an initial evaluation of abandoned munitions. That visit was in limbo as the Update went to press.
As Juan Antonio Navarro told Sixty Minutes: "We obviously don't have the resources to force you to live up to your commitments, legal and moral. So the moral arguments here are paramount. Does the U.S. live up to its moral obligations in Panama? That is the basic question."
Sources: Interviews with State Dept. and Defense Dept. officials; Panamanian Foreign Ministry; report by Panamanian delegation to Washington; El Universal 11/10/98; ABC News Online 9/25/98; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/CH2M Hill, "Preliminary investigation of Building 384, Fort Kobbe," May 1997; Unexploded Ordnance Site Investigation of U.S. Military Ranges in Panama: Empire, Balboa West and Pina Ranges, July 1998, prepared for Panama Canal TIPA, US Army South and US Air Force Installation Logistics Environmental Restoration.