Posted on Jul 28, 2015
Ailing Vets Sue, Say Toxic Burn Pits Cost Them Their Health
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Hundreds of soldiers who've come home from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now are battling the very companies that helped operate their base camps, claiming constant exposure to toxins from open-air burn pits has wrecked their health.
David Montoya, 44, of Farmington is one of newest litigants suing the companies. Cancer that started in his colon has spread to his lungs, and his doctor told him in February that he had about two years to live. Montoya says the cause of his cancer was contaminated water supplied by the military contractors, and from breathing in smoke from the burn pits.
Montoya filed his lawsuit last week in state District Court in Santa Fe against Halliburton Co., KBR Inc. and Kellogg, Brown & Root Services LLC. In doing so, he joined almost 250 other former and active military personnel who are suing the companies, which provided water treatment and waste disposal services in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two other soldiers from New Mexico, both in poor health, jointly filed a suit against the companies six years ago. At one point, a federal judge in Maryland rejected suits against the military contractors, but an appeals court reversed that decision. With the case alive, soldiers who are dying say they have a chance to shed light on wartime actions that placed profits over people.
Burn pits were part of the American war effort as a means of keeping bases functional. Afire constantly, they burned plastics, metals, chemicals and every form of waste, say soldiers who served at the outposts. Contaminated jet fuel often ignited the burn pits.
Read more:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/07/27/ailing-vets-sue-say-toxic-burn-pits-cost-them-their-health.html
David Montoya, 44, of Farmington is one of newest litigants suing the companies. Cancer that started in his colon has spread to his lungs, and his doctor told him in February that he had about two years to live. Montoya says the cause of his cancer was contaminated water supplied by the military contractors, and from breathing in smoke from the burn pits.
Montoya filed his lawsuit last week in state District Court in Santa Fe against Halliburton Co., KBR Inc. and Kellogg, Brown & Root Services LLC. In doing so, he joined almost 250 other former and active military personnel who are suing the companies, which provided water treatment and waste disposal services in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two other soldiers from New Mexico, both in poor health, jointly filed a suit against the companies six years ago. At one point, a federal judge in Maryland rejected suits against the military contractors, but an appeals court reversed that decision. With the case alive, soldiers who are dying say they have a chance to shed light on wartime actions that placed profits over people.
Burn pits were part of the American war effort as a means of keeping bases functional. Afire constantly, they burned plastics, metals, chemicals and every form of waste, say soldiers who served at the outposts. Contaminated jet fuel often ignited the burn pits.
Read more:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/07/27/ailing-vets-sue-say-toxic-burn-pits-cost-them-their-health.html
Iraq
Afghanistan
Health
Posted >1 y ago
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I know I developed a cough that hasn't gone away in the past 8 years since my first deployment. I also know that KBR cut corners to save money. Back in 2006 both FOBs I personally lived on (COB Speicher and LSA Anaconda, now called Joint Base-Balad) had functional, although not functioning, incinerators on them to deal with the waste. I asked a KBR management rep why they were not being used and was told that it was because it was cheaper for them to keep the burn pits, which cost virtually nothing to operate, open. KBR and similar companies made billions of dollars, likely hundreds of thousands each day, by taking shortcuts that put soldiers, and many of their own employees, at undue risk.
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