US group offers to clean up toxic wastes for free

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Newly installed Clark Development Corp. (CDC) president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Angeles has announced that a United States-based firm is set to clean up, for free, toxic wastes left behind by the US Air Force in this former military base.

Angeles said leaders of the US group visited the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ) recently to present its clean-up proposal, and are expected to be back this month.

He declined to identify the group, but sources said he was referring to the Washington-based Civil Engineers Research Fund (CERF), an association of civil engineers in the US.

The group reportedly plans to use former US military bases in the Philippines to pilot-test a new technology it has developed that could effectively remove US military wastes in US territories and other countries.

Angeles said he plans to go to Washington soon to meet with the group, stressing that toxic waste "is one problem that must be solved" at the Clark ecozone.

In August 1997, the CDC completed an "environmental baseline study" on water and soil samples from priority sites at Clark.

Of the 14 sites tested by Weston International which the CDC commissioned, seven were found contaminated with wastes such as oil and petroleum lubricants, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and lead.

Some wells were also found with traces of arsenic and dieldrim well beyond safe levels under the Philippine National Standards.

The CDC cordoned off the contaminated areas and shut down the affected wells, and officially asked the Department of Foreign Affairs to request the US government for technical assistance for more extensive studies and the clean-up.

In November 1997, the CDC asked the radiological survey team of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute to conduct radiological studies at Clark, and the results were negative.

The People’s Task Force on Bases Clean-up (PTFBC) has listed down at least 200 mysterious deaths which it blamed on US military wastes at Clark. Most of the victims used to stay at a former US Air Force motorpool which was converted into an evacuation center for Pinatubo victims.