Cause of Vieques

The Vieques, Puerto Rico Naval Training Range was located on the island of Vieques, just outside the main island of Puerto Rico. The training range was used for military training at the island. The military installation ended operations in 2001 and there was a military presence on the island from 1941 until 2003.

The Department of the Navy started searching for a location to site a naval base during the 1940s. Land was purchased between 1941 and 1950 making up two parcels making up 22,000 acres or about two-thirds of the island. Of that 8,000 acres on the western end of the island was primarily used as a naval ammunition depot until the property was returned to the Municipality of Vieques on May 1, 2001.

The eastern end of the island was used for live training exercises, ship-to-shore gunfire, air-to-ground bombing and US Marine amphibious landings starting from the 1940s onward. Within that area was a 900-acre Live Impact Area (LIA) used for targeting live ordnance. The LIA was located at the eastern tip of the island and away from the civilian population.

The former Vieques Naval Training Range (VNTR) is located on the eastern half and the former Naval Ammunition Support Detachment (NASD) is located on the western one-third of the island. Located between these military sites lay the local civilian communities of Isabel Segunda and Esperanza.

The former VNTR, which comprises approximately 14,573 acres, provided ground warfare and amphibious training for Marines, naval gunfire support training, and air to ground training. The former VNTR was divided into four separate operational areas, comprising from west to east: the Eastern Maneuver Area (EMA), the Surface Impact Area (SIA), the Live Impact Area (LIA), and the Eastern Conservation Area (ECA) at the easternmost tip of the island.

Military operations on the west side of the island had been focused on storing and processing of supplies and the disposal of waste. Sites identified for environmental clean-up include the following:

An environmental baseline survey discovered a munitions open-burn/open-detonation area on the western tip of the island surrounding Punta Boca Quebrada. Further surveying identified 16 possible open-burn/open-detonation sites in the area. As a result, 24 acres of roads and beaches were inspected for munitions, cleared of munitions with clean up completed in December 2011.

After the base was closed, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderon requested Vieques be placed on the U.S. National Priorities List as a designated superfund clean-up site. As of 2014^[update] the EPA has listed the following contaminants and ordnances at the western portion of the naval station: unexploded ordnance UXO, remnants of exploded ordnance, mercury, lead, copper, magnesium, lithium, napalm, depleted uranium along with other unspecified materials. In addition to these, the eastern portion of the site "may also include" polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), solvents and pesticides.

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