Playing war games with our environment

Shoalwater Bay (SWB) is located 70km north of Rockhampton and is adjacent to and part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine National Park and adjoins Byfield National Park.

SWB has survived as a biologically diverse and superbly beautiful coastal national treasure consisting of around 400,000 hectares; hundreds of kilometres of coral coast, beaches, bays and harbours, wetlands and off shore islands. Its pristine environment is a result of geographic isolation and until recently, only limited, high impact training, by the Australian Defence Forces (ADF).

The area is difficult to access and virtually unvisited by the local population who until recently believed the ADF provided the best caretaking option. Fishermen, yachtsmen, the ADF and National Park staff, all recognise the significance of this unique region. The 1994 Commonwealth Commission of Inquiry - Shoalwater Bay banned sand mining recognising “World Heritage” values and environmental importance.

Public sentiment began changing in 2005 after the Australian Government entered an agreement with the USA, which provided the Americans with long term access to and joint use of Shoalwater Bay Training Area (SWBTA), and to other Australian military facilities across the continent.

This agreement ties Australia to the rapid military build up taking place in the north-west Pacific, particularly in Guam, a US territory to our north. The Talisman Saber 2007 exercise is a result of this agreement; as part of the Australian-USA Joint Combined Training Centre.

Shoalwater Bay is one of the US Pentagon’s largest and most important training areas and bombing ranges in the Asia-Pacific region. There has not been disclosure of the terms of these agreements or what weaponry will be used in SWB or Australia generally

Research by the Shoalwater Wilderness Awareness Group (SWAG), into the history of US military training and bases in foreign countries reveal an appalling record. Serious environmental, economic, social and health problems have too often resulted.

The US military doesn’t have a clean slate when it comes to environmental and health protection in Guam. In 2006, University of Guam professor Dr Luis Szyfres identified that Guam’s environment may be causing diseases affecting local residents due to the US military using Guam’s small Cocos Island as a toxic dumpsite more than 50 years ago. In 1946, the Naval Station Guam was built on Cocos Island on the southern tip of the island and was used for the decontamination of US ships returning from service in the US nuclear test detonations in the Marshall Islands.

During the Vietnam War, chemical agents including Agent Orange were stored at Cocos. In 1968, military waste, including substances stored in 55 gallon drums, was dumped into Cocos’ lagoon. Later the US military blew holes in the outer reef to improve water circulation in an effort to clean the lagoon of contaminants.

While the dump is not longer operating, evaporation and wind have dispersed the toxic chemicals all over Guam. Dr Szyfres referred to a Government of Guam report which showed that, in comparison to the continental US, residents of Guam suffered from many diseases which were in epidemic proportions and that death rates were higher. This included nasopharyngeal cancer, which is 1,999 per cent higher in Guam; cervical cancer, 65 per cent higher; uterine cancer, 55 per cent higher; depression-suicides, 67 per cent; liver cancer, 41 per cent; diabetes, 150 per cent; Ischemic heart disease, 15 per cent; and kidney failure, 12 per cent.

Many other diseases were also recorded in extreme numbers. He cited studies by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the US Environmental Protection Agency, which presented concrete evidence that the soil and groundwater of Guam contains toxic chemicals, and that concentrations of the toxic chemicals are above their own acceptable levels. (For more information: this text is taken from Dr Zohl de Ishtar’s paper Military Expansion Explained: The Australia-Guam Connection on the Shoalwater Bay website.)

This pattern of military impacting human and environmental health is also reflected in Vieques, in Puerto Rico.

According to Military Toxics Project, since 1940 the US military has used three quarters of the island for military training exercises, including bombardments. There is evidence of heavy metals and other munitions toxins impacting not only on military lands but spilling over to civilian areas.

In the late 1970s, toxic explosives were found in local drinking water. In 2000, “excessive levels of mercury were found in the hair and finger nails of 45 per cent of Vieques residents”. As a result children aged 0-9 were 117 per cent more likely to contract cancer than children of the same age on the main island of Puerto Rico, and this increases to 256 per cent for children aged 10-19 years. Overall, Vieques residents are 73 per cent more likely to suffer heart disease than other Puerto Rico residents, 64 per cent more likely to develop hypertension, 58 per cent more likely to have diabetes, and 18 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with asthma. (See Military Toxics Project, 2001 - Munitions and Ranges.)

The biennial war games “Talisman Saber” are the largest joint US exercises conducted in Australia. They are vital to the US dominance of the region through the Pacific Command in Hawaii and are linked to other military bases in Guam and Alaska. Guam is the major forward base for the US in the north-west Pacific but lacks the landmass for combined air, sea and land training. SWB is now designated as a principle US joint training area, with Guam’s airspace for training extending south into Australia to include SWB and Rockhampton.

Recently the Australian Government changed the way it administers Environmental Protection Legislation, removing the usual need for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for all ADF and foreign military training and infrastructure development in SWBTA if the ADF deem it unnecessary. The EIS is replaced by a Public Environmental Reports (PER), commissioned by the ADF, paid for by the military, reviewed and released by the military. The public input and consultation process is controlled by military and has been privately described by ADF personal as embarrassing and a disgrace.

The Capricorn Coast’s water catchment lies within the SWBTA and was one of the serious omissions of the incomplete and incompetent PER. A massive public relations and advertising campaign is being undertaken by the ADF and residents are being told of the huge benefits “military tourism” will bring.

There is an urgent need for independent monitoring of military activity in the SWBTA, with transparency and consultation if public trust in the ADF and Department of Defence is to be restored.

Serious local and national public concern has resulted in the “2007 National Peace Convergence” to protest in Central Queensland during Talisman Saber 2007 from June 16-24, 2007. National and international support is strong and growing as increasing numbers or scientists, environmentalist, sociologists, business leaders and politicians come to realise what Australia has to lose in sponsoring the USA military’s ambitions in our region.