"Poison bullets"
Tattoo alum Amanda Lehmert, a reporter for the Cape Cod Times, has an extraordinary, important two-day series starting in today's issue of the Massachusetts daily.
Here's the main story: How tungsten missed the mark . This is how the story begins:
When the 211th Military Police battalion fired the Army's new ''green bullets'' at Camp Edwards in 1999, it was supposed to mark a turning point in a long history of military pollution at the Upper Cape base.
The 5.56 mm tungsten-nylon ammunition was heralded by Army brass as a nonpolluting and nontoxic alternative to the standard-issue lead bullets regulators considered a threat to the drinking water supply beneath the Upper Cape.
But a year after those first rounds were fired, Army researchers discovered that tungsten powder in the bullet leached through sandy soils - the type of soil that covers Cape Cod. The finding exposed the risk that tungsten could leach through soil and into the aquifer under the base - the region's primary source of drinking water.
A Cape Cod Times investigation has found Army officials never told the Massachusetts Guard or environmental regulators about those alarming findings. And when subsequent research further proved the tungsten-nylon bullet was anything but environmentally friendly, Army officials remained silent.
While the evidence against the new bullets mounted behind closed doors, soldiers training at Camp Edwards continued to fire the tungsten-nylon ammunition. By the end of 2003, troops had fired 687,478 rounds on base firing ranges - introducing nearly a ton of tungsten into the environment.
The 5.56 mm tungsten-nylon ammunition was heralded by Army brass as a nonpolluting and nontoxic alternative to the standard-issue lead bullets regulators considered a threat to the drinking water supply beneath the Upper Cape.
But a year after those first rounds were fired, Army researchers discovered that tungsten powder in the bullet leached through sandy soils - the type of soil that covers Cape Cod. The finding exposed the risk that tungsten could leach through soil and into the aquifer under the base - the region's primary source of drinking water.
A Cape Cod Times investigation has found Army officials never told the Massachusetts Guard or environmental regulators about those alarming findings. And when subsequent research further proved the tungsten-nylon bullet was anything but environmentally friendly, Army officials remained silent.
While the evidence against the new bullets mounted behind closed doors, soldiers training at Camp Edwards continued to fire the tungsten-nylon ammunition. By the end of 2003, troops had fired 687,478 rounds on base firing ranges - introducing nearly a ton of tungsten into the environment.
If you go to the front page of the Cape Cod Times's website today -- capecodonline.com -- you'll find an audio interview with Amanda, a video about the issue, more stories and even a little bio page that tells a bit about Amanda and others who contributed to her project.
We're unbelievably proud of what Amanda's done and encourage everyone to read it. This is great journalism from a terrific reporter.
Our official policy: We hate blogs.
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Copyright 2006 by The Tattoo. All rights reserved.
Labels: Cape Cod, environment, journalism, military, water
posted by Steve Collins at Sunday, December 17, 2006
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