In this second article on the subject of the US military base presence in Okinawa, we continue exploring the many long term implications with a focus on the controversial cases of water pollution, chemical contamination & fuel leakages creating an endless string of significant concerns and environmental damage while the Japanese authorities seem impotent in their ability to improve the situation.
US Military Never Granted Permission To Enter Their Bases?
One person who has spent over a decade with his efforts to bring attention and resolution to these issues is former President of Okinawa University, Professor Sakurai Kunitoshi, a well known scholar of environmental studies. One particular incident in December, 2013 spread 2270 liters of PFAS laden fire extinguishing foam into the public sewer system. Shortly thereafter as he explained, the newspaper Ryukyu Shimpo reported the matter including the fact that the Okinawa Prefectural Enterprise Bureau does not have permission to go onto the Kadena military base to inquire and investigate and take part in solving the crisis for its citizens.
What remains at the core of the problem is Article 3, Section 1 of the US – Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) In comparison to other SOFA agreements worldwide including Germany, Italy, Belgium, the UK, Australia, we find Japan is the only country without the right to enter the US military bases. In this instance, that would be to inquire, to investigate and cooperate together with the US military in the interest not only of the US military bases but of the people in the communities of Okinawa, which the US military is accused of caring little about.
Multiple sources have reported that Marine corp emails reviewed obtained after an FOIA request by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire, who was deliberately misled in August 2018, regarding PFAS contamination in the area. “The military’s responses were inaccurate, incomplete, and minimized the severity of the contamination.”
”…home to 78 U.S. military facilities, bilateral agreements (the Japan Status of Force Agreement – SOFA) release the U.S. government from any obligation to test for contamination caused by its operations or remove it if it’s detected.
The U.S. military has never released to the public any information about contamination within the installations. Marine Corps accident guidelines go so far as to order commanders not to tell Japanese officials
The Intercept, November 2020
Multiple Pollution & Contamination Concerns Beyond PFAS/PFOS
Adding to the general scope of PFAS/PFOS contamination concerns, there are two additional pollution and contamination related concerns related to the US military bases on Okinawa:
A.Environmental hazards as inoperable monitoring systems of jet fuel leakages in the military’s extensive fuel pipeline system known as early as 2014 yet unrepaired and unreported to Japanese authorities for four years. The report showed 43 of the 60 monitoring systems were inoperable due to problems like broken sensors and alarms. While the USFJ insists there are no safety concerns, the whistleblower provided evidence to the contrary.
B.Water Pollution – The same FOIA (U.S. Freedom of Information Act) requests reveal problems as ”years of accidents and neglect have polluted local land and water with hazardous chemicals including arsenic, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and dioxin. Military authorities have often hidden this contamination, putting at risk the health of U.S. service members, Okinawan base employees, and the 184,000 Okinawan civilians living in neighboring communities.”
Professor Emeritus Akio Koizumi and Associate Professor Koji Harada found concentrations of PFOS at four times the national average in the blood of Okinawans living near the U.S. bases on the island. … since 2016, local authorities have asked in vain that the Ministry of Defense get permission from the U.S. military for them to inspect the Kadena Air Base to investigate the source of the contamination. …high levels of a carcinogenic chemical were found in the rivers around a U.S. air base and in the blood of local residents, according to a new study. …The controversy is inflaming an already sensitive situation for the U.S. military in Okinawa.
The Washington Post, May 2019
Where is the evidence found for such issues? We turn to researcher and author Jon Mitchell, whose book, Poisoning the Pacific: The U.S. Military’s Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange, tells us the USAF itself released 8725 pages of accident reports, environmental investigations and emails related to contamination at Kadena Air Base. From the mid-1990s to August 2015, the documents are believed to be the first time such recent information detailing pollution on an active U.S. base in Japan has been made public, totaling 415 incidents just from 1998-2015.
Years Later Have The Problems Have Been Addressed?
Fast forwarding to August 2021 and even with the scrutiny already focusing on this
well known chemical contamination of the water supply, the US Marine Air Station Futenma at Ginowan City, Okinawa once again created an environmental disaster releasing approximately 64,000 liters of chemical laden wastewater into the municipal sewer system with only 25 minutes notice informing the authorities before the release was initiated, according to the report by Craig T. Donovan, American Bar Association, published on February 18, 2022
With Marines denying the request to enter the base, authorities’ water samples from the water system outside the base revealed a combined concentration of PFOS and another PFAS compound (PFOA) measuring 0.67 µg/L, which was 13 times higher than Japan’s national safe drinking water threshold (0.05 µg/L).
Donovan, a federal attorney in Washington, D.C. , notes, “Researchers have found PFAS in agricultural plants and the tissues and organs of farm animals, pets, and other terrestrial and aquatic organisms in and around Japan…so far, studies have shown that PFOS and PFOA may lead to a high risk of cancer, liver and kidney disease, reproductive and developmental damage, and other medical disorders.”
Poisoning the Pacific is an enormously valuable book. Jon Mitchell’s expertise on US military operations across Japan and on the US military’s contamination of Okinawa, where he ably guided us both during a recent visit, is unparalleled. Much of what he exposes here is truly shocking, and we expect most readers will share our outrage over what he reveals.
Hollywood Director Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, coauthors of The Untold History of the United States
Next we consider the pursuits of Professor Sakurai Kunitoshi. On March 6th, 2020, the professor offered his keynote address at an event, A Citizens Gathering to Protect the Lives of People from PFAS-Polluted Water, to continue sounding the alarm over these contamination issues. He pointed out that the Okinawa PFAS/PFOS contamination levels were many times higher than what many US states follow. “And what has happened since then?” he asked. “Four years have passed and still Okinawan government officials are not allowed in.”
“During the 1998-2015 period, leaks totaled almost 40,000 liters of jet fuel, 13,000 liters of diesel and 480,000 liters of sewage. Of the 206 incidents noted between 2010 and 2014, 51 were blamed on accidents or human error; only 23 were reported to the Japanese authorities. The year 2014 saw the highest number of accidents: 59 – only two of which were reported to Tokyo.” The Asia Pacific Journal
Privileged Protected Unaccountable
Asking once again, why the challenges and suffering faced by the Okinawan people have yet to be addressed, the answer remains the same. US military bases there well serve US strategic interests in terms of maintaining its presence in the Asia Pacific region, far away from its own shores. The SOFA agreement remains an outrageous block to progress and the US military has zero interest in updating its terms.
These matters remain clearly known and understood, with protestations and dissatisfaction received by the silence and inaction of the Japanese and United States government more interested in war than peace and assurance of basic human rights.
Mario Cavolo, Senior Fellow, Center for China and Globalization
August 18, 2022References
Contamination at Largest US Air Force Base in Asia, The Asia Pacific Journal, Jon Mitchell https://apjjf.org/2016/09/Mitchell.html
On Japan’s Okinawa…,The Washington Post, May 2019
U.S. Military Accountability for PFAS Contamination…, American Bar, February 2022
US Military Bases Poisoning Okinawa, October 2020
https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/us-military-bases-are-poisoning-okinawa/
US Military Responsible for Widespread PFAS Pollution, The Intercept, Dec 2021,
Jon Mitchell
Poisoning the Pacific: The U.S. Military’s Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical
Weapons, and Agent Orange, author Jon Mitchell, an investigative journalist with the Okinawa Times and winner of the 2015 Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan’s lifetime achievement award for press freedom. In 2021, his book, Poisoning the Pacific, won Second Place in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Rachel Carson Environment Book Award
