by Julie Sullivan, The Oregonian
Thursday January 08, 2009, 9:42 PM
Early in the Iraq war, Oregon Army National Guard soldiers say they encountered environmental disaster in oil fields. Now it’s clear a deadly toxin also swirled in the desert air.
At least 48 Oregon soldiers assigned to protect contractors rebuilding a water treatment plant near Iraqi oil fields in 2003 were exposed to hexavalent chromium. The industrial compound, if inhaled, greatly increases the risk of lung cancer.
Last month, 16 Indiana National Guard soldiers sued Houston-based KBR, claiming the nation’s largest war contractor “disregarded and downplayed the extreme danger of wholesale site contamination.” The suit claims KBR hid its civilian workers’ elevated chromium levels and dismissed widespread symptoms — including constant nosebleeds that toxicologists call “chrome nose” — as sand allergies.
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, is asking Congress to create a medical registry to track all soldiers and ensure monitoring, which President-elect Barack Obama and Oregon’s Sen. Ron Wyden already support.
In an e-mailed statement Thursday, KBR denied “any assertion” that the company harmed troops or was responsible for an unsafe condition at the facility. KBR has collected $28 billion in military contracts.
The fallout is just hitting Oregon, where officials worry that as many as 52 soldiers may have been exposed — more than was recently reported by an Army Review Panel.
Concern for Oregon soldiers was first raised by Lt. Col. B.J. Prendergast, who served as executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 162nd Infantry Regiment in Iraq in 2003. His soldiers had already been reassigned when he saw a command e-mail alert about the exposure. He immediately demanded an occupational health assessment for the troops. They were evaluated in Kuwait, and their history was noted in post-deployment reports at Fort Lewis, Wash. No blood or urine tests were conducted.
Last month, an Army Review Panel that convened at Bayh’s request concluded that not testing the Oregonians in 2003 was adequate because none of the Indiana soldiers and civilians tested had “substantially elevated” levels of chromium in their blood. Bayh remains concerned about the type and timeliness of the Indiana tests and has asked the Army for more information.
But even Prendergast didn’t know how many Oregon soldiers the Army had identified as potentially exposed until a call from The Oregonian on Thursday.
“This is the first time I have heard about a number of soldiers being tracked,” he said. “As an exposed individual, that number (48) needs to be explained. We don’t know who is on that list.”
Maj. Mike Braibish, spokesman for the Oregon Guard, said a special officer has been assigned to reach each soldier. That includes 181 others who didn’t visit the water treatment facility but who may have been exposed through their colleagues’ boots or clothing. The Guard also intends to contact all 420 members of the battalion.
Mike Doyle, a Texas attorney representing the Indiana Guard soldiers, said at least one Oregon soldier with significant respiratory problems has contacted his firm. A 42-year-old Indiana soldier who served at the plant died of lung cancer in July, and a second solider is also near death. Others still suffer rashes, tumors and breathing problems.
“Doctors may not even know what they’re looking for unless they have this information,” said Doyle. “This is serious, serious stuff.”
Oregonians encountered the carcinogen, famously fought by Erin Brockovich in California, early in the war. When the 1-162 arrived in April 2003, the Hillsboro, Gresham and McMinnville soldiers shouldered a wide responsibility. They protected Kuwaiti ports and naval facilities. And they provided personal security to private contractors working in Task Force RIO, Restore Iraqi Oil.
Two soldiers would ride in contractors’ vehicles from Kuwait as the contractors assessed southern Iraqi oil sites, including the Qarmat Ali Water Injection plant near Basra. The facility, which treats water injected into oil wells to maintain pressure, is critical to oil production. KBR, then a subsidiary of Halliburton, had won a no-bid contract to repair it.
Looters had pulverized the plant. The hexavalent chromium is a toxic component of the industrial chemical sodium dichromate, which was used to fight rust around the facility. Sacks of it had been punctured, likely by insurgents, and the orange and yellow dust spread, in some places 4 feet deep.
It is unclear when Oregon soldiers rotated to the plant. Prendergast thinks it was midsummer 2003 and they were relieved before the extent of the contamination was discovered.
The Indiana Guard was not so lucky. When they arrived in late April 2003, their commander, Lt. Col. James Gentry, said in a sworn statement that “50 percent” of the plant was covered in yellow and orange sand that regularly coated the troops’ boots and uniforms.
Still, he didn’t understand the hazard until KBR employees showed up in protective suits.
“I didn’t have any idea they were going to be in suits until we got in the vehicle with them,” Gentry said in a recent deposition. “And then it’s like, Why are we still doing this? They’re in protective gear and we’re not.”
He immediately contacted Army command and pulled the soldiers back. After the Indiana Guard returned home, he developed rashes and other symptoms. At Christmas the 51-year-old nonsmoker entered hospice care with a rare form of small cell lung cancer.
The Oregon soldiers worked at the water facility for a much shorter time, but Prendergast and other members of the Oregon Guard know that doesn’t mitigate the risk. In June, Dr. Max Costa, chairman of the New York University Department of Environmental Medicine, told a Senate committee that exposure to just 40 micrograms of hexavalent chromium per cubic meter — about the size of a grain of salt in about a cubic yard — has shown a 50 percent increase in cancers.
KBR has come under withering Congressional fire in recent months for serving expired food and untreated water to soldiers in Iraq, failing to correct electrical work at military installations where several soldiers were electrocuted and for dodging federal taxes by paying workers through companies in the Cayman Islands.
Braibish, the Oregon Guard’s spokesman, said they are determined to contact each soldier.
“We don’t know if anyone has had any illness,” he said. “The bottom line is that our soldiers need to be made aware so they can report the exposure, either to their chain or the Veterans Administration, to get the care they need.
“We want them to know that we care.” (End of Article)
