Vieques

Vieques, PR
Green Intelligence, by Dr. John Wargo will be available September 29, 2009 and will include a chapter which critiques the ATSDR’s public health assessments on Vieques:.

Risk of Toxic Exposures Far Greater than Most Americans Perceive
Threat to Health of Children is Particularly Profound

Most Americans are aware that pesticides, radioactive materials, and heavy metals in the environment have the potential to cause harm. Most Americans also assume that environmental hazards are well studied and reasonably well regulated, and that in general the risk of harmful exposure is small. They perceive their world to be relatively safe.

Americans feel this way, John Wargo explains, because they lack access to even the most basic information that would help them understand and evaluate risks to their families and to their own health. In Green Intelligence, to be published September 29 by Yale University Press, Wargo demonstrates that exposure to hazardous, health-damaging chemicals is widespread and poorly regulated, and that knowledge of contamination and danger is often kept from a too trusting public. The presence of dangerous chemicals in the environment, Wargo argues, may help explain the rise in some of the leading health challenges of our time: obesity, dementia in the elderly, diabetes, asthma, developmental abnormalities in children, reproductive failure, and more.

The picture John Wargo paints is a shocking one. Each day, most people are exposed to thousands of chemicals in mixtures never experienced by previous generations. Most individuals carry in their tissues a combination of metals, pesticides, solvents, fire retardants, waterproofing agents, and by-products of fuel combustion. Many toxins are significantly more concentrated in the bodies of young children. Surely, we think, these chemicals have been proven safe if they are used in consumer products. But Wargo tells us that 80,000 synthetic compounds in circulation have not been sufficiently tested. Regulation of chemicals is neither systematic nor independent, and protecting human health is not given priority in our laws. The resulting threat to health and life is very real, and in order to combat it, we must improve the gathering and dissemination of green intelligence, the crucial data that make clear the risks we face.

Wargo employs specific examples of past and present exposures to identify weaknesses in our system and lessons we can apply to guard human health. From the case of atmospheric nuclear testing, we learn how persistence and dispersal of dangerous compounds can spread risk in unpredictable ways. From the case of pesticides, we learn that piecemeal science conducted by corporations, weak regulation, and toothless reporting requirements inevitably fail to protect public health. From the case of diesel pollution, we learn that even when scientific evidence of a health threat exists, regulatory changes often proceed at a glacial pace. From the case of Vieques, the island off Puerto Rico used as a US bombing range, we learn that environmental harm from military activities persists long after bases are closed, and that the Defense Department shows little interest in restoring devastated landscapes and coastal waters to ensure the safety and health of residents.

Turning to an emerging threat, Wargo examines in detail the dangers posed by the ubiquity of plastics in our lives and environment. Hormonally active components of plastic products known to cause serious reproductive abnormalities in animals can be found in the tissues of every citizen of a developed nation, with especially high levels in children.

Wargo finds striking similarities in these seemingly disparate case histories: delayed discovery of danger and a government too willing to look the other way, or worse, to purposely confuse the public’s understanding of environmental hazards. Together, he argues, these cases demonstrate the global scale of the chemical experiment we are performing on our children.

Green Intelligence is a frightening book, but it also one that proposes clear solutions. John Wargo outlines tough principles for better intelligence-gathering on toxic chemicals. He also offers specific guidelines for managing risks of exposure in the real world. While these sweeping changes would offer the best protection for all of us, they will require a sea change in the way we think about our world. So in an Epilogue, Wargo also outlines steps individuals and families can take to limit their own exposure as much as possible while fighting for larger change.

For more information or to arrange an interview with the author, please contact Tanya Wiedeking, 203.432.7762, tanya.wiedeking@yale.edu, or Liz Pelton, 410.467.0989, <mailto:lizpelton@aol.com> lizpelton@aol.com.

About the Author:

John Wargo is professor of environmental policy, risk analysis, and political science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Department of Political Science at Yale University. He is Chair of the Environmental Studies Major in Yale College and has been an adviser to several EPA administrators and National Academy of Sciences Committees, the U.S. Congress, the U.N. World Health Organization, and Vice President Al Gore. The author of Our Children’s Toxic Legacy, Wargo lives in Killingworth, Connecticut.

GREEN INTELLIGENCE
Creating Environments that Protect Human Health
By John Wargo
To be published September 29, 2009
$32.50 hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-300-11037-1

A sobering assessment of the impact that the late twentieth century’s chemical revolution has had on the global environment and human health, Green Intelligence offers a sweeping view of a vast terrain that is invisible to most Americans and that has not been previously explored.
Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Green Intelligence is by far the most informed, cogent, and readable of the books on the environment that I have encountered. His argument is clear and compelling, his approach is unusual and insightful, and his science is sound.
Herbert Needleman, M.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

A great book on one of the most neglected aspects of the human predicament: the toxification of our planet. Green Intelligence tells the tale through a series of case histories full of personal interest, making it an engrossing read as well as a dependable source of information. And it ends with a bonus: sound advice on how to reduce your own exposure to toxics.
Paul R. Ehrlich, co-author of The Dominant Animal

From nuclear war to farm chemicals to the diesel fumes inside the big yellow school bus, Green Intelligence covers it all, offering us a comprehensive anatomy and a clear-sighted vision for rescue. Bravo!
Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment

This volume is a twenty-first century Silent Spring distilled and brought up to date with appealing prose. . . a disturbing book of revelations about the soup of manmade pollutants that permeates the entire world. Green Intelligence also provides a clear roadmap for the ways forward. . . Required reading for all citizens and leaders.
Thomas E. Lovejoy, Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment

This is the book to read on the full array of chemical dangers in our environment. It is comprehensive, eloquent, deeply informed, and full of practical wisdom.
Donald Worster, University of Kansas

Message concerning the August 12 Meeting in Vieques with the ATSDR Director
Vieques Libre applauds the Vieques community leaders, scientific advisors and others who participated in the meeting in Vieques this past Wednesday August 12 with Dr. Howard Frumkin, Director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and members of his staff, as part of the “fresh look” the ATSDR is taking at the Vieques health crisis and the previous ATSDR public health assessments on Vieques which have been questioned and criticized by several scientists, Members of Congress, and others.

During the meeting in Vieques, the ATSDR Director made several important statements and acknowledgments about the prior ATSDR public health assessments on Vieques, among them:

(1) He acknowledged that those ATSDR Vieques studies had not been peer-reviewed and pledged that the new ones would be submitted for external review, including by local scientists;

(2) He acknowledged that those ATSDR Vieques studies did not really take into account the various independents scientific studies by Puerto Rican scientists and others (that, among other things, showed the link between the Navy’s use of toxins and chemicals and the health crisis among Viequenses). He pledged that he would take into account those studies this time around;

(3) He acknowledged that his agency is small and has a limited budget and thus relies heavily on the studies conducted by others. The ATSDR Director said that in order to conduct proper studies and assessments, the agency needs to know what were all the agents that were dropped by the Navy in Vieques. He acknowledged that, when the agency performed the public health assessments over six years ago which showed “no apparent health hazard” from the toxins and chemicals dropped by the Navy in Vieques, the Navy failed to provide needed data and information to the agency.

The participants explained to Dr. Frumkin that the previous ATSDR public health assessments in Vieques have been used by the Navy to justify actions like open burning and open detonation in Vieques, like the proposed and much-criticized burning of some 200 acres of vegetation -in a highly contaminated area- as part of the clean up in Vieques, like their use as a defensive weapon by the Navy to claim they have no responsibility to address the health crisis in Vieques, among other things.

Dr. Frumkin was told that the consensus among the Viequense community and community leaders, the Mayor of Vieques, scientific advisors, and others, is that the ATSDR must follow the recent precedent in the case of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and withdraw the previous ATSDR public health assessments in Vieques now. (In the case of Camp Lejeune, the ATSDR recently withdraw its 1997 public health assessment of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water system stating that it could no longer stand behind the accuracy of its conclusion that the contaminated drinking water system posed no threat to human health).

Dr. Frumkin said that if the previous studies by the ATSDR are shown to be faulty, then the agency would withdraw them, but that it’s too soon to tell now. He was then told that if the agency’s new “fresh look” at the Vieques situation is to have credibility then the most sensible and reliable way to truly take a fresh look was to withdraw the much-maligned previous ATSDR studies now, rather than build upon that faulty foundation.

Participants mentioned the example of Camp Lejeune, where residents were given a false sense of security by the ATSDR for over ten years in spite of the health hazards denounced by scientists and community activists. The eventual withdrawal of the Camp Lejeune public health assessments by the ATSDR was a welcomed step. But it took much too long. Similarly, the previous ATSDR studies in Vieques have been questioned by community activists, by respected scientists from Puerto Rico and the U.S. and by Members of Congress, and the people of Vieques cannot afford to wait any longer until those previous studies are withdrawn. Moreover, in the interim, the previous ATSDR studies continue to be used by the Navy to justify actions that are detrimental to the people of Vieques, and will continue to be used as such until the previous studies are withdrawn.

In short, during the meeting Dr. Frumkin made some important acknowledgments concerning the previous ATSDR public health assessments on Vieques, and made some commitments to the community. There is still a great deal of mistrust about the ATSDR, however. The Vieques community and its allies will remain alert and vigilant and will continue to stress that the best way for the agency to take a truly “fresh look” at the Vieques health situation -as has been requested by Members of Congress- is to withdraw its previous ATSDR public health assessments on Vieques now.

By MANUEL ERNESTO RIVERA (AP) – 13 hours ago

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico — U.S. authorities have begun a review of a five-year study that found no ill effects caused by decades of military exercises on the tiny island of Vieques.

The executive director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry met with residents late Wednesday and pledged to revisit the agency’s findings. Howard Frumkin said officials would correct data and investigate further if needed.

“If there is anything more we can do, it will be done,” he said.

Frumkin’s visit to Puerto Rico marks the start of the review of a study that came under fire in congressional hearings earlier this year.

But his visit was met with suspicion from residents, who long resented the presence of the U.S. military on the island that lies just east of Puerto Rico.

The U.S. Navy bought two-thirds of Vieques in 1948 and used the land as a bombing range for nearly 60 years. Protesters demanded the military’s ouster after an errant bomb killed a civilian security guard in 1999.

The Navy left in 2003 and has cleared thousands of unexploded rockets, cluster bombs and other munitions from the area, which is now a Fish and Wildlife Service refuge.

Last year, the Navy announced it had set aside $200 million for another seven years of cleanup efforts targeting more than 9,000 acres (3,600 hectares) of the almost 23,000 acres (9,300 hectares) it occupied.

But residents say the cleanup is leading to more contamination because bombs are being detonated in the open.

Community leader and anti-Navy activist Robert Rabin said previous studies “represent the death of this community because it has already been shown how the Navy used those studies to justify open detonation and burning of vegetation.”

Democratic Rep. Steven Rothman of New Jersey has said he expects an update of the revision by October.

“I find it unacceptable that the residents of Vieques have not been given a fair assessment of the health risks associated with years of U.S. Navy activity,” Rothman said in a statement earlier this year. “It is obvious that ATSDR’s studies declaring no negative impact are highly controversial.”

His spokesperson, Carrie Giddins, said Thursday that Rothman was not available for comment.

Presentation by the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques before the Executive Director of the Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Dr. Howard Frumkin, at the Puerto Mulas Lighthouse,
Vieques August 12, 2009

Dr. Frumkin and members of the ATSDR team present:

Welcome to Vieques. We appreciate your presence and the interest in Vieques shown by the US Congress, President Obama and the agency you direct.

My name is Armando Torres Sanes and I am a member of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, community organization that works for justice and peace.

Three years ago I lost my wife of 57 years of age to cancer. Like many Vieques families, mine has suffered the effects of the horrible health crisis here.

Our committee fought during many years to end the US Navy bombing to stop the destruction of our natural resources, economic strangulation and the poisoning of our air, land and water. We struggle in defense of the health of our people, for the rights of our people and the next generations to live in a healthy and safe environment.

We have no doubt about the relationship between the sicknesses that attack our town and the military practices carried out for half a century here by the US Navy.

During all those years they deposited on this island tnt, aluminum, cadmium, lead and many other chemicals in great amounts. How is it possible that your studies show everything is clean?

After so many years of lies and deceit by the Navy as well as federal and Puerto Rican agencies charge with protecting the environment and our health, it is difficult to have faith in campaign promises and the new initiatives taking form in the Congress and at ATSDR.

Despite this, it is our duty to take advantage of all opportunities to push for justice for our people.

For this reason we participate in this dialogue, with hopes that you have come with genuine interest in hearing our thoughts about these topics of life and death.

We respectfully urge you to begin a new process of scientific studies about the effects of military toxics on the health of our people.

We use this fórum to express our objection to the open burning and detonation of unexploded ordnance and vegetation in the ex bombing range, practices the Navy says is part of the clean up but we say add more dangerous toxics into our environment.

We reiterate our call for a new program of studies and investigations about the military toxics that have poisoned our air, land, sea and food chain and the effects of this contamination on our people’s health.

Without health, there is no justice!

Without justice, there is no peace!

Help us obtain peace for our people and the next generations of Viequenses.

Thanks

COMITE PRO RESCATE Y DESARROLLO DE VIEQUES

Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques

P.O. BOX 1424 VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO 00765

cels. 787 375-0525 787 206-0602 f, 787 741-8787

E mail: robert.rabin@cpdv.org

Website: http://www.cprdv.org

Black Sand Beach, Vieques PR

Excerpted from the book Vieques, A Photographically Illustrated Guide to the Island, Its History and Its Culture
Although most of Vieques formed as a result of limestone deposits, some areas, notably Mount Pirata, is volcanic. Some of this volcanic material is a black crystalline substance called magnetite, which washes down the Quebrada Urbana during heavy rains. This magnetite has collected downwind and down current from the mouth of the Quebrada Urbana and has resulted in the only black sand beach on Vieques. (Magnetite is iron based and the black sand on the Black Sand Beach will be attracted to a magnet, a cool science experiment for visiting schoolchildren.)

Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques
P.O. BOX 1424 VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO 00765
cels. 787 375-0525 787 206-0602 f, 787 741-8787
E mail: <mailto:robert.rabin@cpdv.org> robert.rabin@cpdv.org
<http://www.cprdv.org> www.cprdv.org
10 August 2009

Press Release

Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry visits Vieques to revise its studies and conclusions on military toxics and health on the island municipality.

Dr. Howard Frumkin, Executive Director of the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR) – part of the Center for Disease Control (CDC/Atlanta), will meet in Vieques with community leaders Wednesday, August 12.

Participants in the meeting with Dr. Frumkin will include members of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CRDV); Vieques Women’s Alliance; Restoration Advisory Board; Vieques Commerce Association; scientific advisors to the Vieques community from the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Jorge Colón and Dr. Cruz María Nazario; lawer Flavio Cumpiano, CRDV advisor in Washington, DC. The meeting will take place Wednesday, August 12 at 7:00 PM at the Punta Mulas Lighthouse in Isabel Segunda, Vieques.

Six years after the cessation of bombing n Vieques, this community struggle now to get the US Navy to clean up the island municipality of the military toxics left behind after six decades of war practices. The Viequenses demand, also, that government agencies – both federal and Puerto Rican – guarantee their right to live in a safe environment and in good health.

Wednesday’s meeting in Vieques corresponds to strong criticism of ATSDR by a congressional commission that forced its Director, Dr. Howard Frumkin, to point to the need for “taking a fresh look at the 2001 studies” done by ATSDR on Vieques.

These studies indicated that Vieques’ health crisis – for instance, a 27% higher cáncer incidence compared to the rest of Puerto Rico – had no relation to contamination produced by the US Navy. ATSDR studies about Vieques have been criticized by several scientists from Puerto Rico and the United States. Members of a congressional commission – the Subcommission for Investigations of the Science and Technology Commission of the House of Representatives – have criticized ATSDR studies about Vieques and urged Dr. Frumkin to reexamine his agency’s studies and Vieques’ health situation, and to take into consideration the many scientific studies by Puerto Rican professionals and others that indicate high levels of heavy metals in the environment, the food chain and in the people of Vieques.

Community groups reject Navy practices of open air detonation of unexploded ordnance as part of the ‘clean up’. They argue that the explosion of bombs over the past two years has added to the level of contamination. They also oppose Navy plans to burn hundreds of acres of vegetation in the ex bombing range on Vieques to facilitate location of bombs and other dangerous artefacts.

Since the ATSDR studies and conclusions were made public more than six years ago, suggesting that toxic substances dropped by the Navy on Vieques do not represent a health risk, the Navy has rested on these studies to avoid responsibility for an adequate clean up, descontamination and Vieques health crisis. The visit to Vieques by the ATSDR director coincides with the consideration in the Puerto Rico district of the US Federal Court, of a lawsuit by seven thousand Viequenses against the Navy for health damages. Lawyer John Arthur Eaves, Jr., legal representative for the plaintiffs, will also be in Vieques this week to participate in meetings, including on with clients and others interested on Thursday, August 13 as 6:00 PM at the island’s Multi Use Center.

Contacts: Nilda Medina 787 206-0602

Robert Rabin 787 375-0525

Sunday, August 9th, 2009
Where? Cayo Blanco (across from the ferry in Isabel).
Time: FREE Buffet: 5 PM until 6 PM
Pool Tournament: 6 PM until finished.

There will be Chili, Home Grown Vieques Salad, Freshly Baked Bread and Dessert (All prepared by local chefs and chefettes.) So far the chili makers are Derrick from Cantina Reina and Gladys from Black Beard Sports. We can use one more. Are you a chili maker?

Then, around 6 PM, because it was so much fun last time, there will be a POOL TOURNAMENT.
$10. to play – $50.00 First Prize with an Ostentatious Trophy.

There will be a BOOKIE to take bets on the winner. He’ll be the shifty eyed guy wearing a hat that says “BOOKIE.”

We need 2 servers and a host/hostess.
We can use another dessert.

If you can help … great!

If not, please join us for an evening of food and fun. All welcome.

Money raised will go to the Incubadora, the Vieques Children’s Band and
S.N.A.P.

Paz,
Vieques Baila

THE NEW YORK TIMES
August 7, 2009
A New Battle on Vieques, Over Navy’s Cleanup

By MIREYA NAVARRO
VIEQUES, P.R. — The United States Navy ceased military training operations on this small island in 2003, and windows no longer rattle from the shelling from ships and air-to-ground bombings.

Gone are the protests that drew celebrities like Benicio Del Toro and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Real estate prices and tourism have boomed: a 157-room Starwood W hotel is expected to open by December on the island, which is seven miles east of Puerto Rico’s mainland.

But Vieques, once the largest training area for the United States Atlantic Fleet Forces, is still largely defined by its old struggles. Once again, residents have squared off against the American military.

The Navy has begun removing hazardous unexploded munitions from its old training ground by detonating them in the open air. It also proposes to burn through nearly 100 acres of dense tropical vegetation to locate and explode highly sensitive cluster bombs.

But what could have been a healing process has been marred by lingering mistrust. As the Navy moves to erase a bitter vestige of its long presence here, residents assert that it is simply exposing them again to risk.

“The great majority of emergency room visits here last year were for respiratory problems,” said Evelyn Delerme Camacho, the mayor of Vieques. “Can they guarantee that contaminants or smoke won’t reach the population? Would we have to wait and see if there’s a problem?”

The cleanup comes as the local Vieques government and most of the island’s 9,300 residents pursue claims against the United States government for contamination and for illnesses that they assert are linked to pollutants released during decades of live-fire and bombing exercises beginning in World War II.

Given the history of grievances, many locals are aghast that the Navy’s methods involve burnings and detonations whose booms can be heard in some residential areas, setting people on edge. They have spoken out at public hearings and in legislative resolutions.

But Christopher T. Penny, head of the Navy’s Vieques restoration program, said the unexploded bombs are too powerful to be set off in detonation chambers. And he said that experiments to cut through the dense vegetation with a remote-control device had not had much success.

Environmental Protection Agency officials who are overseeing the project say that such on-site detonations are typical of cleanups at former military training ranges. Jose C. Font, an E.P.A. deputy director in San Juan, says they pose no threat to human health as long as limited amounts are exploded each time, the wind is calm and air quality is monitored constantly.

In 2005 the training ground was designated a federal Superfund site, giving the E.P.A. the authority to order a cleanup led by the party responsible for the pollution.

The unexploded munitions lie o n 8,900 acres of former Navy land on the eastern end of the island, including 1,100 acres of what was once the live impact area. The E.P.A. says the cleanup could take 10 years or more.

Workers are using historical records, aerial photography and high-power metal detectors to locate the munitions before cutting through the foliage and detonating them. So far, the Navy says, it has identified 18,700 munitions and explosives and blown up about a third of those.

The E.P.A. says that the hazardous substances associated with ordnance that may be present in Vieques include TNT, napalm, depleted uranium, mercury, lead and other chemicals, including PCBs.

Residents’ concerns about the cleanup are heightened by suspicions of a link between the contaminants and what Puerto Rico’s health department found were disproportionately high rates of illnesses like cancer, hypertension and liver disease on the island.

In 2003, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which assesses health hazards at Superfund sites, concluded that levels of heavy metals and explosive compounds found in Vieques’s soil, groundwater, air and fish did not pose a health risk.

But this year the registry agency said it would “rigorously” revisit its 2003 finding, and its director, Dr. Howard Frumkin, plans to visit Vieques on Wednesday to meet with residents.

Puerto Rico’s legislature, meanwhile, has asked President Obama to keep a campaign promise to “achieve an environmentally acceptable cleanup” and “closely monitor the health of the people of Vieques and promote appropriate remedies.”

Most contested here is a Navy request to the E.P.A. and the Environmental Quality Board in Puerto Rico to allow the controlled burn to clear vegetation and find bombs. The risk of accidental explosions, the Navy says, is too high for workers to do it by hand using chainsaws, machetes and trimmers.

“The issue is safety,” said Mr. Penny of the Navy. Many residents complain that they have not received enough information to feel reassured. Among them are a group that gathers on most evenings in a plaza of sand-colored buildings anchored by the church in Isabel Segunda, Vieques’s main town.

“We hear they are taking out bombs, but we haven’t been informed of what exactly is coming out of there and whether there’s more contamination when they get it out,” said Julio Serrano, 57, who works at the airport as an operations supervisor.

We need to be told clearly what’s in there.”

Yet some experts on military cleanups suggest that, rather than focusing on any short-term air quality problems, residents might consider the possibility of an accidental explosion that is years away.

“The real risk is that there’s no technology available that would guarantee that they’ve removed every piece of ordnance,” said Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, an assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who has studied the risks of adapting former training ranges. “There’s no way to make that land safe for reuse unless it’s very restrictive.”

Other battles loom. Most of the 26,000 acres the Navy used to own on the eastern and western ends of Vieques — making up about three-fourths of the island — have been turned over to the Department of the Interior, which plans to maintain the land as a wildlife preserve.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has already opened up small portions of the area to the public as a wildlife refuge that includes gorgeous undeveloped beaches where sea turtles like the loggerhead and hawksbill nest.

But Mayor Delerme Camacho said that once the cleanup is over, Vieques’s residents want to be able to use the land for housing and ecotourism, too. Already, those eager to build have staked out makeshift claims with signs on trees within a chunk of 4,000 acres transferred by the Navy to the municipal government.

Though fishermen can now catch red snapper and yellowtail unfettered by the Navy’s target practice, and visitors have discovered the rural charms of a place where horses roam freely on the roads,

Vieques still has high rates of poverty and lacks a full-fledged hospital.

Ismael Guadalupe, 65, a retired teacher and leader in the long resistance to the Navy’s operations here, said that while the training is over, the fighting continues.

“As one of our sayings goes, `If we had to eat the bone, now we should be able to eat the meat,’ ” he said.

According to the Chronicle of the Indies:
” The natural instinct of this animal allowed it to distinguish between fugitive Indians or enemy Indians and those that had already been subdued. He attacked his foes with fury and rage and defended his friends with great valor. If a prisoner escaped, Becerrillo would find him no matter where he tried to hide. Among 200 Indians he would seek out and find the one who had fled from his designated job and take him by the arm to the Christians. If he resisted, Becerrillo would tear the man to pieces. The Indians were more afraid of ten Spanish soldiers accompanied by Becerrillo than by 100 soldiers without him.”

Hi, my name is Gerald Singer. I am the author of the book, “Vieques.”

The following is the introduction to the book:

Vieques, A Photographically Illustrated Guide to the Island, Its History and Its Culture is not a guidebook in the traditional sense of the
word. It does not contain practical information for the traveler, such as places to stay and where to eat. It does, however, endeavor to portray to the reader a more complete understanding of the island for those of you who, like us, are new to Vieques.

We try, through the media of photography, travel journal entries and stories told to us by residents, to give you a taste of the beauty and charming character of the island as well as an appreciation for the people and their heroic struggle for peace, justice and human dignity.

The fact is that Vieques is more than the stunning beauty of its magnificent landscapes, beaches, dramatic vistas, and charming towns untouched as yet by modern global style development. Vieques is also an island with an often sad history, blotted by the abuses of centuries of colonialism and bearing the scars of more than 60 years of US Navy occupation during which the island and its people suffered injustices, insensitivity, economic and social hardships, and the destruction of much of the natural environment.

For as beautiful and unspoiled as Vieques appears to the visitor of today, it is, unbelievable but true, a mere shadow of what it once was
and what it hopefully can become again.

We have often heard the words “undeveloped, natural and unspoiled,” used by travel writers and visitors to describe Vieques and we would like to put that into perspective.

With the US Navy using some three quarters of the land on Vieques as an ammunition dump and a bombing range, there was very little
happening on the island in the free-for-all development days of the late twentieth century that effected so much of the Caribbean.
Consequently, Vieques was able to maintain much of its original character and escape the onslaught (until now) of the results of unconstrained development such as traffic, congestion, fast food restaurant chains, global franchises, and sprawling condominiums
and resorts dominating the beaches. The island also avoided the environmental and cultural consequences of irresponsible development. The price paid, however, was dear.

Over a half century of bombing, bulldozing and shelling have damaged or destroyed many of the coral reefs, mangrove lagoons and dry forests. The beach environments were negatively effected by the removal of vast coconut groves to facilitate war game practices.

Worst of all, is the contamination left behind by the Navy in the form of heavy metals, depleted uranium, explosive residues, unexploded
bombs and artillery shells and the dumping of toxic wastes.

Since the Navy has left Vieques, the island has been “discovered” for the third time: First by the indigenous peoples coming from the mainland of South and Central America, second by Christopher Columbus and the Europeans who followed him and presently by waves of tourists, speculators and developers. Consequently, the people of Vieques now face many difficult challenges that will determine the future course of the island.

The intention of this book is to impart our impressions of the awesome beauty of Vieques, to present you with images of the island that you can share with others, to guide you to those hidden and remote places often missed and to give you a sense of the history of the places that you will visit while, at the same time providing you with a sensitivity and respect for the warm, lively and friendly people who call Vieques their home.