Leaked Memo: Afghan ‘Burn Pit’ Could Wreck Troops’ Hearts, Lungs

Spencer Ackerman at Wired’s Danger Room

For years, U.S. government agencies have told the public, veterans and Congress that they couldn’t draw any connections between the so-called “burn pits” disposing of trash at the military’s biggest bases and veterans’ respiratory or cardiopulmonary problems. But a 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room flat-out stated that the burn pit at one of Afghanistan’s largest bases poses “long-term adverse health conditions” to troops breathing the air there.

The unclassified memo (.jpg), dated April 15, 2011, stated that high concentrations of dust and burned waste present at Bagram Airfield for most of the war are likely to impact veterans’ health for the rest of their lives. “The long term health risk” from breathing in Bagram’s particulate-rich air include “reduced lung function or exacerbated chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, atherosclerosis, or other cardiopulmonary diseases.” Service members may not necessarily “acquire adverse long term pulmonary or heart conditions,” but “the risk for such is increased.”

The cause of the health hazards are given the anodyne names Particulate Matter 10 and Particulate Matter 2.5, a reference to the size in micrometers of the particles’ diameter. Service personnel deployed to Bagram know them by more colloquial names: dust, trash and even feces — all of which are incinerated in “a burn pit” on the base, the memo says, as has been standard practice in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.

Accordingly, the health risks were not limited to troops serving at Bagram in 2011, the memo states. The health hazards are an assessment of “air samples taken over approximately the last eight years” at the base.

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Fluor contractor dies in Afghanistan attack

A Fluor Corp. employee from North Carolina was killed in a May 19 attack on Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

The contractor was the sole fatality, but several service members were wounded, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.The name of the contractor wasn’t released because of Fluor policy, said Keith Stephens, company spokesman. The casualty was Fluor’s first due to hostile action, he said.

Stephens said the contractor “was in an area of the base that was the focus of the attack

From GreenvilleOnline.com