Talk:Navy–Culebra protests

Congressional Research Service Report RL32533
Congressional Research Service Report RL32533

The Congressional Research Service (CRS), known as "Congress's think tank", is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis.

Reports by the Congressional Research Service, usually referred to as CRS Reports, are the encyclopedic, public domain research reports written to clearly define issues in a legislative context. Over 700 new CRS reports are produced each year; almost 4,000 are currently in existence.

CRS reports are highly regarded as in-depth, accurate, objective and timely, and topped the list of "10 Most-Wanted Government Documents" in a 1996 survey by the Center for Democracy and Technology.

As you can see on the following CRS Report for Congress on the Report RL32533 of July 7, 2005, title "Vieques and Culebra Islands: An Analysis of Environmental Cleanup Issues " examines the implications of the site listing for environmental cleanup You can find this Report on the following WikiLeaks Document Release Web Address http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS:_Vieques_and_Culebra_Islands:_An_Analysis_of_Environmental_Cleanup_Issues%2C_July_7%2C_2005 of February 2, 2009.

On the Abstract of the report indicate the following:

This report provides information on the listing of Vieques on the NPL, examines the implications of the site listing for environmental cleanup, indicates the status and estimated costs of cleaning up munitions and other environmental contamination on Vieques, and discusses cleanup actions and costs at nearby Culebra Island.

Summary

For decades, the U.S. Navy conducted ship-to-shore bombing exercises and other live-fire training activities on Vieques Island and Culebra Island, located off the coast of Puerto Rico. In response to concerns about risks to public safety, human health, and the environment, Congress directed the Navy to close its training facilities on Vieques Island in 2003 and to relocate them elsewhere. The Navy has begun to investigate the presence of munitions and related contamination on Vieques to determine the cleanup actions that will be necessary to protect human health and the environment, and has begun the surface removal of munitions in some areas. In 1974, Congress had enacted legislation that required the Navy to cease its training operations on Culebra Island, in response to similar public concerns. The Army Corps of Engineers has removed some munitions on Culebra to address safety hazards in publicly accessible areas, but has not begun a comprehensive cleanup of the island. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board are responsible for overseeing these actions. There has been rising public interest in the degree to which the Department of Defense (DOD) will be required to clean up both islands. The scope of the cleanup will depend on the type and extent of contamination found, and whether a pathway of human exposure exists. The National Defense Authorization Act for FY2002 (P.L. 107-107) prohibits public access within the Live Impact Area of the former bombing range on Vieques. Public access also may be limited in other areas due to the presence of munitions hazards. Since denying public access is intended to reduce safety threats, DOD may be allowed to remove fewer munitions than would be required otherwise. However, if contamination has leached from munitions and migrated to present a pathway of exposure, removal of more munitions may be required to protect human health. Possible pathways include the consumption of contaminated groundwater and contaminated fish or shellfish. At the request of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Sila M. Calderon, EPA listed Vieques on the National Priorities List (NPL) of the nation’s most hazardous waste sites on February 11, 2005. Listing a site on the NPL does not affect the stringency of the cleanup that is required or increase the availability of funding for the Navy to perform the cleanup. Rather, it identifies Vieques as a site that warrants further investigation to determine actions that are necessary to protect human health and the environment. The Governor also requested that EPA list Culebra on the NPL along with Vieques. However, EPA “elected to take no action” on its final listing decision for Culebra at that time, and reports that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Army are negotiating a Memorandum of Agreement to govern the cleanup. Regardless of the site listing decision, the degree of cleanup on either island will depend on threats to human health and the environment and the types of remediation that will be deemed necessary to address these threats. Whatever actions are required, the progress of cleanup will depend on the availability of federal funding to pay for the remediation. This report will be updated annually to track the status of cleanup on both islands.

The information provided in this report was originally prepared at the request of Representative Jose Serrano. It has been released in this format for general distribution to interested Members and Committees of Congress and their staff.

--Seablade (talk) 07:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I'd like to suggest merging this into the main Culebra, Puerto Rico article as it is not developed enough (or has such little info) to have its own article. Hardly any other pages link here and there is very little information about these culebra protests on the internet. So I propose merging it into the main Culebra article. --Turn685 (talk) 19:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the suggestion to merge this article with the main article on Culebra. I edited this page before reading the main article on Culebra. In the course of several edits I added references (first hand published narratives by the mayor (Feliciano) and the lawyer (Copaken) who led the struggle. I also endeavored to put the role of the protests into perspective, ie that they were important but they were not the crucial force that brought the Navy to its knees.  The previous version included the inaccuracy that the Navy agreed to leave Culebra following the protest in 1971, but this is an inaccurate account.  In fact, as detailed in Copaken's book, the Navy agreed to look for location.  The difference is obvious, and the result was anticipated, namely that the Navy looked and decided that Culebra was the best.  Marc Shulman (talk) 19:02, 4 December 2018 (UTC)