Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Laura Smith, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

According to Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who chairs the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, military contractor Kellogg, Brown, and Root [KBR] is continuing to dispose of waste in Iraq using burn pits that reportedly give off toxic fumes.

“The Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal Kellogg, Brown, and Root, made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of U.S. troops to toxic smoke...burn pits are still used at the Balad Airbase in Iraq, which is the largest U.S. base in that country.”

Dorgan went on to list toxins that could be contained within a smoke plume from a burn pit, included carcinogens, respiratory threats, cardiovascular toxins, nervous system toxins and other toxins.

Burn pits have been used since 2003 in Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of waste and other harmful materials.

Retired Lt. Col. Darrin L. Curtis, Ph.D., P.E. said one of the first things he noticed when he arrived to Balad Air Base was the smoke from a burn pit. “The smell was noxious and looked like a very thick fog hanging low to the ground,” he said.

Curtis said that while he was at Balad Air Base, he conducted sampling of the smoke plumes and “the sample results were used for the U.S. Army’s Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (CHPPM) health risk assessment published in May 2008 in which CHPPM stated that ‘adverse health risks are unlikely.’"

“Since then, the Department of Defense (DoD) has relied on this report to conclude that ‘long-term health effects are not expected to occur from breathing the smoke’ at Balad Air Base,” he added.

Rick Lamberth, a former KBR employee, returned home from Iraq in July of this year, and said, “since returning home in July, I have suffered from a number of respiratory problems related to the exposure. Now the military will not pay for my medical care. They claim that these conditions are existed prior to service (EPTS).”

Lamberth said he worked with direct contact for the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) and with KBR. He said, “under the LOGCAP contract, waste disposal by private contractors must comply with Army regulations, federal EPA and the Defense Logistics Agency’s regulations for waste and hazmat removal and disposal."

Lamberth went on to say that “the LOGCAP Statement of Work explicitly conforms to Army Technical Bulletin 593, which allows for the use of burn pits “only in emergency situations until approved incinerators can be obtained.’”