[Photos] Health risk for soldiers in Balad, Iraq: The Burn Pit
by Ms. Babble on October 30, 2008
in Iraq
I have cross posted this blog entry at patriotmissive.com. I found it important enough to list twice.
An article listed in Military.com today called “Balad Burn Pit May Pose Health Risk” sparked my interest mostly because I spent a year long deployment stationed in Balad, Iraq myself. Along with the thousands of other troops that have been stationed in Balad (or, LSA Anaconda), one thing stands out in all of our memories: the burn pit.
The burn pit is a massive pile of garbage that burns 24/7 which leaves a long trail of smoke lifting into the sky and, depending on how the wind shifts, into the lungs of the soldiers and civilians stationed there. The plume is so large that “software engineers writing a program to help fighter pilots navigate their way onto the base made it a central part of the digitally simulated skyline”
During my post-deployment health assessment, I made sure to document my concern for breathing in the burn pit air for 12 months even though the military denied it causing any adverse affects.
But there’s a new memo being circulated that was written by environmental engineer Darrin Curtis, who served with the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group at Balad from September 2006 to January 2007 (I left Balad in October, 2006).
Here’s what he says:
He expressed his dismay with the burning of toxic chemicals, plastics and other toxic waste — including, according to some reports, amputated limbs from the base hospital — and the lack of any apparent concern for the health of those breathing in the smoke.
Curtis wrote that health risks associated with smoke inhalation and respiratory exposure to toxic fumes produced by the burn could result in chronic ailments for service members at a base already ripe with other wartime hazards, including frequent rounds of indirect fire that earned the facility the nickname “Mortaritaville.”
“It is amazing that the burn pit has been able to operate without restrictions over the past few years without significant engineering controls put in place”.
Below are my personal pictures of the burn put from my deployment in 2005-2006. They show the actual pit and also the visual effect it has on the 25 square kilometer base:
Balad Air Base is quickly becoming to “Ramstein” of Iraq. I’m willing to wager that it will be the next permanent duty station for American troops…. just as we have in South Korea and Germany. American troops have been stationed in Balad for 5 years now. I’m glad to see the truth of its health hazards are coming to light.
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THAT is some scary sh*t girl. Keep your head up and in tune… you need to know if you qualify for some relief should there be long-term repercussions from this.
<3
This instantly reminded me of the general lack of concern (and cover-up) surrounding the health of the firefighters, rescue workers, and clean-up crew who worked for weeks in the smoldering ruin of the twin towers. Glad you found this story, but sorry that it touches you personally.
I have recently posted a blog about this myself. I would like to add a link to your post…to mine…if that’s OK with you.
I primarily blog about the Soldier electrocutions and electrical safety in Iraq and Afghanistan and KBR fraud, waste and abuse. But this is just too important to not publicize.
Feel free to link to any of my Soldier electrocution posts and thanks for helping get the word out.
Ms Sparky
I was stationed at ANACONDA in 2006 as a civilian and had first hand incounters with this “Burn Pit”. I remember specificlly, the amount of plastics and small arms amunition that I saw in this pit, even burning paint and paint cans. I was exposed to the Burn Pit for about an hour and a half and recall getting rather sick that same evening to the point I went to the clinic there on post. Another place that has a serious problem with this is CAMP CUERO in Rahmadi, Iraq. I am not 100% sure that is the correct city but when they burn the pit on the south end of the camp it is horrible.
@Jacob
I have a feeling that we’re going to start seeing a lot of people stepping forward about the major health risk to military personnel and contractors about the burn pits scattered throughout Iraq. Thanks for confirming it for us.
I spent 13 months in Balad from 2004 to 2005. The fumes from that pit cannot be described. In the summer of 2005 I noted a weakness in my legs resulting in a foot drop which now requires leg supports to walk Neuroligical exam feels the cause is unknown, I have to feel the cause is from toxic agents exposed to from the burn pit.
Did anyone else note neurological problems associtated with being at Balad or other ares where uncontrolled burn pits were in operation. Jess Marcel
Thank you for sharing with us Jesse! I have added your comments to my other blog here: http://patriotmissive.com/2008/12/03/the-iraq-burn-pit-plot-thickens-plus-unofficial-testimoy/
..along with Jacon Kern’s comment too. Maybe someone else will post there letting us know if they have also had neurological problems associated with being deployed to Balad.
I just got back from Balad, where I served as the Mayor Cell’s “Garbage Officer.” The Balad burn pit was mine for the last 8 months.
The oopen pits are all gone. We installed concrete lined trenches with “air burners.” An air burner is like a leaf blower on steroids, stokes up the fires almost as hot as incinerators. Makes for a cleaner, more complete burn with alot less smoke.
The mountains of scrap metal on the south end of the pit are all gone. The land is flat and clean.
The recycling cneter takes in allthe used water bottles, the main source of dioxins mentioned in the Military Times article. The bottles themselves are meade of clear plastic, no labels or glue or coloration. They’re ready for recycling as soon as they come off the assembly line. Takikng them out of the waste stream improved the efficiancy of our incinerators as well.
Access to the trenches is regulated. No plastic, no ammo, no HAZMAT {paint, patroleum products, etc}, no medical waste.
When I left, they were planting trees and clearing ground for a tennis court. It isn’t the same place it used to be.
I’m very pleased to hear that they have finally solved the burn pit problem. It’s a relief that future soldiers and civilians stationed there won’t have to endure what the rest of us had to endure. I only wished there were incinerators and a recycling center for the last 5 years and not just the last 8 months. But I suppose it’s better late than never.
Thank you for your service!
I have a non-profit that has raised money for the rescue workers from 9-11. We now want to build a specialized health facility for those sick from chemical or toxin exposure (and this story about the Balad burn pits falls into this category). We also want to work with Viet Nam vets with Agent Orange exposure, Gulf War, 9-11, workplace contaminants, etc. You may contact me if you have pertinent information that will help our case for a specialized health facility. Please check out the power point presentation on our website. http://www.rememberrally.com
This is horrible. War is always dangerous and horrible. Diane, I am really glad you organized non-profit donating organization.
This is horrible
THAT is some scary sh*t girl.
I hope they have Acai berries with them
just kiddin ..
Govt must do something about it .. they are in hell of a danger there
This scared me out a lot .. now I understand!
The burn pit problems have been solved??? Try talking to some of those serving in Balad right now who say the fumes are nauseating. When will something be done to ensure the safety of our troops?
i’m dieing from that stupi pit. i dont smoke. i came back with asthma to the max, er vists to help me breath. im working thorugh the va post deployment physical but they are retards. i have albuterol and prednisone but its not helping. is there anyone doing a class action i can get with? i want my family taken care of.
Yes there is I have the webb sight if you want it.
the above poster is a politician or a lier (both) his problem solving was to bring on incinerators but that reduced the open air burn pit form 100’s of tons of waste per day to 50 tons per day. he’s a liar. i was there through may of 2009 and the burn plume of smoke is in every one of my pictures. you cant escape it.
he sounds like a va administrator or someone who is responisble for this crap happening. like a person in the mayros cell responsible for garbage that might want to shut people up. oh hat’s what he said he did
thanks ass hat
im sure he’ll come back with a witty flippant response. your were burning crap, plastic, stuff from the hospital and stuff from the chow hall up till may 2009.
it wafted over to the army side most days. it depended how the wind blew.
if you were in charge of the garbage i want your name. i want you up on charges. you can pay for my kids college after i’m dead.
and yes im ticked. i’m royaly hurting here. even as i type this i cant breath. i havent done anything this day, no running or exercise. i worked in a cube farm all day as an enginner. i shouldnt be breathing like i just finished a marathon.
the burn pit has to be the cause. i was ine before i went. spent 10 months in balad and now i cant breath.
i want your name mayor cell garbage man. my name is lee jellison. give me yours
Sorry to hear your sick. Sincerely hope they figure out what it is and fix it.
Still don’t think it was my pit.
You worked in a cube farm every day. I worked IN THE PIT everyday. I’m fine. I stayed in touch with the Turks who operate the pit, in 12 hour shifts, 13 days on, 1 day off. Some of them have been there for 3-4 years. They are also fine.
If it was the pit, wouldn’t those who were exposed longer, those who were exposed to smoke straight out of the pit, be dieing faster?
The open pits were gone when I left. The only heavy smoke came from DFAC waste vegitable oil. I left late NOV of ‘08. Don’t know what’s happened since then, not there & not in control.
Good luck,
I am currently trying to find the link, VA published an article on the burn pits, the things burned in them. All of which, we all put there and they burned it, the one thing I had no idea they were burning was the medical waste.
I was at Balad in 2006, the C-23 Sherpa unit, housed with the Air Force. We were by far the closest living quarters to the pit. I have pics of the smoke so heavy in our pods, you’d swear it was on fire.
I am like most, having breathing problems, sinus issues, tired, cant sleep, ringing in the ear. Downside, VA the ones that published the above document, says I need more documentation that my symptoms are connected to Iraq.
Kinda makes me feel better to know the are others out there with the same issues, I am having. Hell, I can t drink milk anymore. Used to drink it by the gallons before 2006, now if I drink it, bad things happen.
The bright side hopefully we will all live long enough for them to get their heads out and realize. This war is no different from the others, with the Agent Orange, and all…..
Good luck ya’ll, if I find that memo from VA, I’ll post it or the link.
Sgt. Schaef,
If you see this message, will you please contact me. I’m an Air Force Veteran and have a non-profit organization and am trying to build a specialized health facilty to address things such as Agent Orange, 9-11, and the burn pits in Iraq. We want to focus on people who become sick from chemical or toxin exposures. I would like to talk to you about your situation and the subject of the burn pits. You can email me at promos@iw.net or call 507-283-4194.
There’s a power point presentation and brochure on our website at http://www.rememberrally.com
Thanks
Diane
I was in Balad for the most of 2008. I am finding out more each day about the burn pit that I thought at the time wasn’t a good thing. Now I have trouble breathing have type II diabetes, shake alot like I have parkensons, along with some skin red marks that I didn’t have before. Thank you KBR for your looking out for all our well being. Have any of you got the same thing happen? I am severly pissed about the whole thing.
Lynn, the chances of you getting any random disease are as low as 1-in-a-trillion. You can’t use anecdotal evidence to question things like this. I show an example of the math at the bottom of this post btw.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I have a Bachelors of Science degree in Biochemistry, with a minor in Microbiology. The way things like this work is different for everyone. Toxic fumes, radiation, chemical exposure, etc. often function under different mechanisms regarding “DNA mutagenesis” (that is, mutation of DNA). It is this mutation which can cause cancer and other diseases. We have ~6 billion “base pairs,” half of which come from each parent. The base pairs are the letters you see on CSI–A,C,T,G which make up our “genome,” the entire set of information which makes up our bodies. Only a very small part of this, as little as 2%, actually contains the DNA necessary for functioning (i.e. the “code” for the actual proteins which do the work in our bodies). The other 98% is “junk DNA.” Thus, if one of these mutagens (such as noxious burn pit chemical fumes) manages to enter your body and mutate your DNA in the 98% of junk DNA, you’d never even notice it. Between the low odds of it doing this, along with each person’s individual genetics, which makes them more or less susceptible to individual ailments, you have the reason for why you aren’t affected and the author of this post is.
Not to go into too much detail, suffice to say that this susceptibility is mostly based on the fact that you get one copy of each “gene” (i.e. sequence of DNA) necessary to make every protein from each of your parents, and not all of these copies may work. This is how you get “carriers” of diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia or hemophilia, who don’t actually have the symptoms themselves (they have one “good copy” and one “bad copy” of the gene). So if you have one bad copy for a gene that controls M.S. or Diabetes or whatever else, and one good copy, there’s a far greater chance that you’ll get that disease with a random mutation. To have both copies of the gene affected would be astronomically small, even if you’re in the burn pit (in this example) all the time.
This is all basically high school biology, and maybe we’d have less issues if at least our leaders (including those of the military) were all required to take it. Right now, they use the same anecdotal-type evidence that Lynn did to attempt to claim that there aren’t problems whenever a situation like this arises.
Things like this are very saddening. How does the military continue to treat its soldiers in this fashion? I’ve heard about this, as well as contaminated water in Iraq caused by KBR/Halliburton not treating it properly, and issues with poisoning due to contaminated water and radioactive dump sites at Camp Lejeune. Only one of them has been addressed (the contaminated water in Iraq) and some of the problems have been suppressed by the branches involved, as well as additional federal agencies. How hard is it to not dump hazardous waste (or burn it!) close to a base, and to make sure that all water is treated prior to being used by base personnel? It’s atrocious, especially considering considering the huge, no-bid contracts these crooks got in Iraq.
I’ve been thinking of joining up since I’m applying for citizenship and I’d like a chance to serve my (new) country, but reports like this give me pause. For all the grandstanding the politicians do about “support[ing] the troops,” they sure seem to allow a culture of cover-ups and denial within their upper ranks. It’s ridiculous how they try to deny things which any civilian health authority would immediately condemn and attempt to rectify. I personally don’t agree with the reasons we were told to invade Iraq. Also, while I agreed with Afghanistan in the first place (going to get Osama & fight Al-Qaeda), I think they gave us the run-around on Afghanistan (no info about Osama in years). However, that’s my issue with the politicians. I highly respect and appreciate our soldiers’ belief in defending our ideals, including the right of our elected President and Congress to make the mistakes to send them to fight. So even if I choose not to put myself & my family at risk, I thank all of you who have–and now pay an on-going toll with ailments and decreased quality of life caused by this and other things which you shouldn’t have been exposed to. Everyone signs up with the knowledge that they might die due to enemy action, but no one goes in with the expectation that their own contractors are going to sell them out to pad their bottom lines and/or their commanders will bury things to avoid embarrassment.
For anyone who cares about the math of my initial statement, here’s a very-simplified example: the average gene is made of 3,000 base pairs. Thus, the chance of any one nucleotide being mutated is 6-billion/3000 = 2-million–that means a 1-in-2-million chance. It’s a lot more complicated than this, but I’m trying to keep it simple-lol. Now, if the gene that is affected is the only “good copy,” as explained above, then you now have a disease. If you had 2 good copies, then the chance of you getting a second mutation in the second good copy is 1/(2-million x 2-million) = 1/4-trillion. Your chances of getting the disease just went from lottery chances to no-chance-in-hell. Now, like I said, it’s a lot more complicated than that, and there are a lot of additional factors. But say the chances of getting a more common disease are 1-in-100 when you only have 1 good copy of a gene to start with; then the chance of a person with 2 good copies is 1-in-10,000–way lower.
David,
Love your responce. Thanks for the education.
Can I use your information to justify genetic profiling to determine military eligibility? Clearly, some people have inheritted better genetics than others. Those who have them should take on the harder jobs-earning higher pay and rank in the process, because their bodies are so much better equipped to handle it …
By your arguement, couldn’t we also say that light skinned people shouldn’t serve in desert environments becuase we’re more genetically more-at-risk to skin cancers?
You tread a dangerous path with the best of intentions, my friend.
As for why we had the burn pit on post: it’s a nonlinear conflict-no front lines, baqd guys every where and no where at the same time. We burned garbage on post so no one had to risk life and limb to take it off post. As bad as all the smoke may have been, no one wanted to give or receive the order to drive garbage trucks off post. If the Two Star garrison commander sent convoys of garbage trucks off post, and any got the slightest scratch from enemy action, he’d be burned in effigy at home and in theater.
You was with you all the way up the fifth paragragh, then you descended in conspiracy theory, like every one else.
I saw the burn pit is a massive pile of garbage pictures of the burn put from deployment.It shows the health risk for soldiers.With most of the soldiers unable to serve, the Department of Veterans Affairs has issued guidelines to doctors and has launched a study to evaluate the long-term health effects from exposure to the burn pits.