| Bush Extends Area 51's Toxic Secrecy | |
Most places that produce toxic waste are required to disclose, in great detail, all the facts surrounding those wastes. Area 51, however, is not "most places." For the fifth year in a row, President Bush has granted the Air Force an executive exemption from legal requirements to disclose information regarding solid or hazardous waste disposal operations at Area 51.
All other government and all private business are required to provide information on their waste disposal procedures under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Lawsuits necessitate Area 51's annual exemption
Area 51's annual exemption stems from lawsuits filed in 1996 on the
behalf of two former civilian employees at the facility. Both employees, Robert Frost and Wally Kasza,
died of illnesses attributed to inhalation of smoke from toxic materials being disposed of
at Area 51.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuits, Frost v. Perry and Kasza v. Browne, claimed that the Air Force and EPA had violated the RCRA by illegally burning Area 51's hazardous waste in open pits.
Never seeking any monetary damages, Frost and Kasza asked only that the Air Force be forced to disclose factual information relating to the chemical nature of hazardous waste produced at Area 51 and the methods used for its disposal.
Pentagon's defense:
"What Area 51?"
When the suits were filed, the Pentagon still relied on claims of "military and state secrets privilege"
to deny the very existence of Area 51. At trial, Air Force lawyers argued that
Frost and Kasza could not have possibly inhaled non-existent smoke from
non-existent hazardous waste disposed of at a non-existent Air Force base.
Not fully buying the government's "What Area 51?" defense, the courts handed down judgments that satisfied almost nobody. While the plaintiffs were not allowed to find out what Frost, Kasza and other workers had been exposed to, the courts did order the EPA to conduct annual inspections of "an operating location near Groom Lake" for compliance with the RCRA and to make its findings public. The Air Force, however, did not want to make those findings public and the Air Force knew a way to get its way.
Under federal law - 42 U.S.C. 6961(a) - the President of the United States can exempt "any solid waste management facility of any department, agency, or instrumentality in the executive branch from compliance with such a requirement if he determines it to be in the paramount interest of the United States to do so." Since 1998, two presidents have chosen to "do so."
In 1997, a court ruled that the Air Force's exemption from hazardous waste disclosure for "an operating location near Groom Lake" had to be issued annually by the White House. President Clinton issued the first such exemption in 1998.
Oh, That Area 51!
The Air Force finally admitted the existence of Area 51 on April 17, 2000, when Air
Force spokeswoman Gloria Cales told Associated Press reporters, "We acknowledge
having an operating site there [Area 51], and the work is classified."
Cales added that the work done at Area 51 involved "operations critical to
the U.S. military and the country's security."
Area 51 is believed to have been among several desolate dessert Air Force sites used for testing of once top-secret U.S. military aircraft, like the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes, and the F-177A stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber. Yet fueled by years of secrecy, the main thing to take off from Area 51 have been rumors and theories concerning "unearthly" operations going on there.
Rumors of "alien
toxins" blast off
Nobody involved in the lawsuits ever even hinted that the substances Frost
and Kasza died from were anything but good-old "Made in the USA"
hazardous industrial waste. However, Area 51's reputation for extraterrestrial
doings led ufologists and conspiracy theorists
to claim the workers had actually been exposures to deadly alien toxins,
possibly byproducts of alien spacecraft fuel.
With its boundaries guarded round-the-clock by forces promising to employ deadly force against against trespassers, the air base that never existed has accumulated more than its share of rumored other worldly purposes, including but far from limited to:
- Crashed or captured extraterrestrial spacecraft are hidden there.
- Deceased and possibly surviving alien pilots are kept there.
- The alien spacecraft are being converted for use by the US Military.
- With the cooperation of the U.S. Air Force, Area 51 is used by an extraterrestrial military force, (They promise to help us win future wars in return for partial control of our government, the human race, etc.)
Besides "eye-witness" accounts from a few credible and many not-so-credible people, Area 51's extraterrestrial rumors are based on three main facts:
- The Air Force runs it.
- It's in the desert, just like Roswell, New Mexico
- Flying lights and objects traveling at impossible speeds and making impossible maneuvers have been reported, even photographed in the vicinity.
Still, the question
remains...
Neither Frost or Kasza ever claimed to have witnessed or to have knowledge of extraterrestrial
activities at Area 51. The Air Force publicly claims waste disposal procedures
at Area 51 now fully comply with EPA regulations. Why then, does the White House
persist in exempting Area 51 from EPA disclosure, an exemption granted to no
other military or non-military government facility?
The answer, of course is that except for "an operating location near Groom Lake," there is nothing out there but desert. Nothing in the world.
