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TAG asks DPH to declare fuel farm a health hazard
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Posted on Dec 07 2004
The Tanapag Action Group has asked the Department of Public Health to officially declare the Tanapag fuel farm a health hazard that has caused serious serious health problems among villagers.
The TAG said there are villagers who still reside near the military fuel tanks that expose them to serious health risks.
In a letter to DPH Secretary James U. Hofschneider, TAG’s Benigno Sablan asked that funding be made for another round of medical screening among Tanapag villagers.
Sablan noted that there were no follow-up tests conducted among the residents after the 2000 medical screening.
“TAG’s position is further supported by Dr. [Richard] Brostrom in the local media that the fuel farm within and around Tanapag should be declared a hazardous area because of the threat to the health of those residents still residing in the immediate areas of all military fuel tanks of various sizes and of types of fuel,” Sablan said.
“To date, there has been no official declaration of the above statement by your immediate health professional,” he added.
The TAG is pressing for testing of the fuel farm and other sites within the village for possible contamination not only of polychlorinated biphenyls but also other substances such as dioxins and hydrocarbons.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Ramon Mendoza recently said the initial cleanup process for the fuel farm had begun, as he and representatives from the Division of Environmental Quality and the TAG gathered groundwater and soil samples from the site.
Mendoza also disclosed that the EPA has allotted $100,000 for the DEQ to conduct an assessment of the contamination, so it could come up with a report for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ remediation work.
After completing the $20-million treatment of contaminated Tanapag soil of carcinogenic PCBs, the DEQ disclosed that 15 other formerly used defense sites or FUDS remain active for future cleanup. Active FUDS are those sites that the U.S. military or the Department of Defense used for whatever operations, excluding active battlefields.
