Salem-News.com El Toro articles Page 22

`Larry Agran, Great Park Gangbanger: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire?`

Or "Larry (What, me worry) Agran: The Lesser of Feebles?"

(LAGUNA BEACH) - Larry Agran's dream is turning out to be Orange County's nightmare. Costs soaring, the promised pollyanna tax revenue for the County diving, it just gets worse by the day. The contaminant cleanup budget soars, removal progressing slowly and ineffective for water-borne pollutants migrating region-wide. Little or no preemptive risk assessment, no contingency or fallback strategy. No Plan B, Just Plan A(gran).

We need an OC Grand Jury intervention, and like Watergate, let's have the OC District Attorney's Office follow the money.

Irvine's chosen developer, Lennar Homes, has a decades long reputation and fiscal nationwide history rife with horror stories, vendor mischief and LLC bankruptcies, yet it continues to do business in spite of its ineptitude and lapses.

Toxic Hangars: Veterans Told to `Take a Hike`

The Marine Corps takes great pride in taking care of its own. Marines are known to greet each other with “Semper Fi.” Semper Fi is a truncated form of “Semper Fidelis,” Latin for “Always Faithful.”

(SOMERDALE, N.J.) - This is the second report in the continuing investigation of the contamination at former MCAS El Toro. A prior report addressed issues related to the possible contamination of El Toro’s base wells.

The focus of this report is the government’s response of January 2, 2009, to requests from Marines to evaluate the risk of their possible exposure to trichlorothylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE) vapors in the hangars and buildings of the Marine Wing Support Group 37, the most industrialized portion of the base.

Government Findings on El Toro Wells Not Unexpected

Marine veterans and dependents asked for assistance from ATSDR. Government agency cites lack of information and sampling data, despite evidence of TCE in base wells and El Toro engineering drawing showing wells part of the water distribution system after the award of an early municipal water services contract.

(SOMERDALE, N.J.) - This is the first report in addressing the possible contamination of former MCAS El Toro’s base wells. Future stories will address possible contamination from dermal contact and inhalation and ATSDR’s response.

In April 2008, a group of former El Toro Marines and dependents asked the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR) to evaluate their exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE) and other contaminants found in the soil and groundwater at Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro, California.

In 1985, the Orange County Water District found trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) in shallow irrigation wells down gradient of the base.

Deadly Toxic Chemicals from El Toro Marine Base Affect Woodbridge in Irvine

The Internet is allowing the truth about this contaminated and closed down Marine air base to move into public view. Sign the petition to help Marines, the link is at the bottom of this article.

(IRVINE, Calif.) - A Salem-News.com series that began May 1st 2007 about deadly toxic contamination at the now-closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County, California, seemed like unwelcome news at the time to City of Irvine officials and also the public representative for the Irvine Ranch Water District.

Loose lips do sink ships, but so do plenty of other things. The ship in this case, was a huge development project planned by Lenar Homes that would have turned the dangerously polluted base into an upper end housing community and public park.

Construction ground to a halt and the base is now being used to store automobiles.

Have Irvine and Lennar Ignored Hazardous Nuclear Waste at El Toro?

The Chair for the former Marine base Technical Subcommittee in 2000, went public with details about nuclear contamination at El Toro shortly before his death the same year.

(IRVINE, Calif.) - We have written several articles and produced video reports on the environmental damage on the grounds of the now-closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Most of the stories revolved around contamination from TCE, trichloroethelyne, an aircraft degreaser sold to the U.S. government by Dow Chemical. As it turns out, the deadly cancer-causing and liver killing TCE may just be the tip of the iceberg. El Toro is also contaminated by nuclear waste.

One problem with El Toro, is that most of the people involved in the decisions to subject Marines and their families and civilian workers to dirty water, are dead. a former named Marine Robert O'Dowd, who also writes for Salem-News.com, has discovered that the doctor who wrote the most comprehensive article written about the problems with radioactive waste at this old Marine base, died of a heart attack the same year he wrote it.

Dead men tell no tales, but those who publish their research go on helping people long after they are gone. That is the case with the late Dr. Chuck Bennett, former Chair of the Technical Subcommittee, on the Restoration Advisory Board for the Former MCAS at El Toro.

`A Few Good Men, Lots of Chemicals`

Camp Lejeune’s "The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten" website adds link for MCAS El Toro Marines veterans. Attempts to learn more about the exposure of El Toro Marines to toxic chemicals continue.

(SOMERDALE, N.J.) - Former MCAS El Toro could be used as a movie script for the “perfect environmental crime.” Dump 8,000 pounds of TCE (trichloroethelyne) and other goodies into the soil and groundwater; watch a mostly TCE plume go through the area of the base wells into Orange county; put the base on the BRAC hit list; lose documentation; put thousands of acres up for sale; and pocket $650 million from the sale to a land developer. In this case, the victims are mostly “invisible Marine veterans,” who have no clue of what hit ‘em.

We’re a long way from understanding the extent of exposure of Marines at El Toro to TCE/PCE (perchloroethelyne)and other contaminants. This would be a “cold case,” if it were not for the efforts of a few El Toro veterans who refuse to accept the government’s “don’t worry; there’s not need for concern.”

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is attempting to locate documentation to determine the risk of exposure to TCE/PCE for El Toro Marines.

Orange County Turns Blind Eye to Toxicity of Former Marine Base

Orange County learns few lessons in the world of business as a toxic waste site is prepared for habitation.

(SALEM, Ore.) - One of the only U.S. counties to ever declare bankruptcy, Orange County, California, has a bear of a problem on its hands. That problem is the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro; a shell of its former self that now rests within the confines of Irvine, since it was annexed.

El Toro was placed on the U.S. government's Base Realignment and Closure list and the last fighter jets lifted off the flight deck at El Toro in 1999. The initial plans for the reservation involved creating a new airport for Orange County; one that would have relieved the strain on traffic patterns at the John Wayne Airport. That plan was scrapped in favor of developing the area in to a housing community and park.

The big secret that hides behind the gates of this former military air base is that the Marines and Navy turned it into a virtual toxic waste dump. It isn't that much of a secret really, plenty of people know that trichloroethelyne or TCE, was used to clean planes here for decades and that it is a problem, but few comprehend the significance of the problem.

El Toro`s Wells Still Suspect

The quest for information into the history of serious toxic contamination at a now-closed Marine base in Southern California continues.

(SOMERDALE, N.J.) - Marines at the El Toro air station in Orange County, California were contaminated by a toxic chemical and government agencies seem to have lost copies of the multi-million dollar contracts.

The Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro is closed now; the base wells abandoned and destroyed. For over 50 years, the Navy spent millions to purchase water for El Toro and the nearby Santa Ana Air Facility. But today the Navy can't explain why the water was purchased or the reasons the base wells were abandoned. The integrity of the wells and the dates abandoned are important since the wells were located in the path of a major trichloroethylene plume.

Trichloroethylene or TCE, is a chemical degreaser marketed and sold by Dow Chemical. For decades the product was used on military bases like El Toro to clean military equipment. At El Toro the TCE was used to strip grease from Marine jet fighter aircraft.

Marines Unaware of Risks

More information about the toxic waste exposure of Marines at the El Toro Air Station is emerging, but government data regarding the site remains elusive.

(SOMERDALE, N.J.) - The Marine Corps takes great pride "in taking care of its own", but the Naval services have not done a good job notifying veterans who were stationed at former MCAS Toro that they are at risk for exposure to toxic chemicals as a result of the contamination of the soil and groundwater. Very few know of their exposure.

Marines who served at Camp Lejeune, El Toro and possibly several locations, have been exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE) and Perchloroethylene (PCE), and they may suffer serious health consequences, and have no idea of what hit them. Most Marine and Navy veterans stationed at El Toro have no knowledge of the toxic chemicals found on the base, its place on the EPA Superfund, eventually closure in 1999, and sale at a public auction by the Navy in 2005 to a joint venture for $650 million.

TCE Expert Talks With Former El Toro Marine About Toxic Waste (VIDEO)

This is the fifth video in a continuing series about a deadly chemical dumped into the groundwater by Marines at El Toro that is moving in the water tables beneath neighborhoods in Irvine, California.

(IRVINE, Calif.) - Lethally toxic chemicals were dumped into the groundwater over the decades at the now closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Irvine, California. Marines and their family members have become sick over the years and the health problems can be passed on generationally. TCE, (Trichloroethylene) is known to cause liver failure, several types of cancer, mutations and intestinal disorders.