military endangers public by not cleaning up pollution - Wisconsin

[donsu]

http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/guest/69164.php

Laura Olah: Military endangers public by shirking duty to clean up its messes

Rural Wisconsin families are paying the ultimate price for decades of delayed cleanup of environmental toxins left by the U.S. military.

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A suspected source of the water contamination discovered recently is a series of settling ponds that span the southern boundary of the 7,400-acre facility. During active production years, the ponds carried industrial and sanitary waste water from inside the plant to the nearby Wisconsin River. Residual levels of mercury, lead and other pollutants in the river are so potent that tiny creatures that normally thrive in healthy river sediments are nonexistent.

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Inside Badger, at the base of the Baraboo Hills, is a 10-acre fishing pond with no fishing. Mercury contamination in the Ballistics Pond, a tributary of Otter Creek, is so high that health officials have issued a "do not eat" advisory for children under 15 years old and women of child-bearing age. Despite the "no fishing" signs, the Army claims cleanup is not necessary.

Unfortunately, this story is not extraordinary. From McClellan Air Force Base in California to Cape Cod in Massachusetts, the military is failing to clean up its messes. At the Massachusetts Military Reservation, the sole source of drinking water for more than 400,000 residents is contaminated with explosives and other toxins. In San Antonio, Texas, a plume of toxic contamination extends over four miles beyond Kelly Air Force Base under 20,000 homes.
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the article ends thus:

Indeed, it is the security of our drinking water, our lakes and streams, our grasslands and forests, and our right to raise our families in a healthy environment that is now in the balance. The water we give our children to drink, the water in the bathtub and the water that protects us in the womb should be free from toxins - including toxins from the U.S. military.


can't you all just see these ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, etc. overflowing when climate change cause record breaking rains or when climate change causes these water places to dry up and blow the toxin around in dust storms?