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Eskimos Seek Answers to Land Contamination
Yup'iks Suspect Health Woes Are Linked to Past Military Pollution
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Michael Ross
Agatha Napoleon, a leader of the Hooper Bay community's effort to get scientific answers for the health and environmental problems it is experiencing.
Courtesy Torsten Ernst/ Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC)
Detail of a map of the Cape Romanzof region of western Alaska. Yupik locals in nearby Hooper Bay think contaminants from the former radar site are polluting their land and water.
All Things Considered, November 28, 2003 · Alaska has been of strategic importance to the military since World War II because of its location and remoteness. Today, the remnants of 700 defense sites dot the landscape, from rusted equipment to hazardous landfills.
But the military was not alone. Alaska natives have been living off the same land for thousands of years. It's a tenuous existence in a harsh, isolated place, and any change to the environment is a potential threat.
Although there is no scientific evidence, the Yup'ik Eskimos are increasingly worried that abnormalities in the fish and wildlife and their own health problems are somehow related to the contaminants left behind by the military. As NPR's Elizabeth Arnold reports, the people of Hooper Bay are determined to find out themselves.
A few miles from Hooper Bay, one of 50 small villages in the delta of the two largest rivers in Alaska -- the Yukon and the Kuskokwim -- is Cape Romanzof. The base was one of a dozen early-warning radar sites constructed in the 1950s as part of the Cold War military buildup. The Air Force began cleaning up the site in the early 1980s, capping landfills, digging up tanks and treating contaminated soil.
When, in the early 1990s, a study found elevated levels of PCBs and fuel in local wildlife, Yup'ik locals asked the Air Force to fund a more comprehensive study. The Yup'iks insisted on designing the study themselves and doing their own sampling not only at the base, but near the village. They want to find out exactly which toxic substances are contaminating their land -- and where they came from.
The Air Force acknowledges that it's at least partly to blame for some area contamination and has embarked on a costly, long-term remediation program. But it hopes the results of the study will help distinguish which pollutants originated from its Cape Romanzof site, and which may be coming from other sources.
Preliminary results from the study are expected within a few months.
