Bomb Depot at Center of Dispute

For half a century, the military has been burning and blowing up unwanted munitions in open pits at the Sierra Army Depot in a sparsely populated corner of Northern California.

Windows would rattle on area homes. Residents would see smoke rise in the distance. But nobody thought much about it.

Until recently.

Now the depot, which in the last few years has annually destroyed 12,000 to 24,000 tons of bombs and mines, is on the defensive, accused of releasing toxins into the winds that are causing lethal illnesses among local residents and Nevadans across the nearby border.

Last week U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), asked the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine if a cancer cluster existed in the region.

Residents of the nearby town of Susanville and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe reservation in Nevada are demanding that the depot stop the open-pit burning and detonation of ammunition.

A retiree who has scoured hospital records contends that the area’s inhabitants have suffered from an above-average number of cancers. And regional politicians are asking state environmental officials to take a closer look before they grant a new permit for destroying bombs and land mines.

“They’re not against the military. They just don’t want toxins dumped on them on a daily basis,” Jack Pastor said of his fellow Susanville residents, who are concerned, like him, about the depot emissions.

State officials say they have examined local cancer rates and found nothing out of the ordinary.

A spokesman for the 97,000-acre depot, which burns and blows up more munitions than any other military installation in the nation, said legitimate questions have been raised, but nothing has been proved.

“My frustration is that a minority has tried and convicted some very hard-working people when no state or federal agency has come forward and said there truly is a hazard,” commented Larry Rogers, the depot’s public affairs officer.

Blood tests of the depot’s munitions workers have revealed no abnormalities, he said, adding that the ammunition “basically vaporizes” when it is destroyed. “There’s not a massive amount of anything being put into the atmosphere.”

Soil and water samples have been taken at the detonation site, but none farther away. That, say depot neighbors, means the facility’s officials don’t really know what they’re putting into the air.

According to state and depot spokesmen, assessments of the operation’s environmental impact are based on computer projections, which have concluded that the open pit operation is not a threat to the region.

“Garbage in, garbage out,” Pastor scoffed.

The retired phone company employee started researching hospital records and munitions data after listening to a congressional hearing on Gulf War ailments in which there was testimony, he said, that plumes from military explosions can travel a great distance.

“I’m going, man, this is maybe why my family is sick,” recalled Pastor, 59.

He and his family moved in 1980 to Susanville, a town of about 17,000 roughly 30 miles from the depot. One of his grown daughters developed a benign brain tumor. Tests of another showed she had high levels of heavy metals in her system. His wife has health problems, and his dog has cancer.

Pastor criticizes the state’s examination of regional cancer rates, saying it omitted Lassen County cases treated in Reno, which is the nearest city.

Ron Baker, a spokesman for the agency that regulates the depot’s munitions operation, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, said Lassen County’s population isn’t big enough to yield good cancer data.

But he said a recent study by the state cancer registry of Lassen and two adjoining California counties turned up nothing unusual, either in the type of cancers or their rate of occurrence.

The state, which has allowed the demolition to continue under an interim permit for the last 20 years, is considering taking air samples in the region when explosions are set off, Baker said. There also are plans to examine Nevada’s cancer registry to determine the number and type of cases from Lassen County.

“We’re certainly going to try and work with the state of Nevada,” Baker said. “And if the CDC is willing to come out and conduct a study, we’ll work with them.”

Most of the depot’s 650 employees, almost all civilians, have nothing to do with the munitions work. They are involved in the maintenance and storage of vast amounts of military equipment.

Critics say they wouldn’t even mind if the munitions demolition continued, as long as it was done in enclosed chambers, as is the case at a facility in Hawthorne, Nev.

But Rogers said cluster bombs and mines, the bulk of the material now being handled at the Sierra facility, cannot be destroyed in chambers.

“You take it anywhere in the country and you’re going to have burn and detonate” it, he said.