New York Times
Published: November 13, 2009
The federal agency that assesses health hazards at sites designated for Superfund environmental cleanups said Friday that it had reversed its conclusion that contamination at a former United States Navy training ground in Puerto Rico posed no health risks to residents.
As a result, it said, it plans to recommend monitoring to determine whether residents of the island of Vieques, the site of decades of live fire and bombing exercises, have been exposed to harmful chemicals and at what levels.
“Much has been learned since we first went to Vieques a decade ago, and we have identified gaps in environmental data that could be important in determining health effects,” Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said in a statement posted on the agency’s Web site late Friday afternoon. “The gaps we found indicate that we cannot state unequivocally that no health hazards exist in Vieques.”