A Vieques Post-Script

Those who follow the plight of people of color in the United States, the Americas, or the world, really, should be pretty familiar with the fight to stop the US Navy from practice bombing at Vieques, Puerto Rico. Eventually notables such as Edward James Olmos and Al Sharpton were arrested in protest, and Sharpton famously went on a hunger strike.

Humans weren’t the only victims of the bombing. It was also an environmental disaster for the island, which is why it is good to read that the decades of bombing didn’t have quite as devastating an impact as one might have expected:

Surveys show that the reefs around Vieques are actually in slightly better shape than corals protected by nearby marine parks. “It wasn’t quite what some people expected,” says Riegl, a researcher at Nova Southeastern University in Dania, Florida.

That doesn’t mean that the Vieques reefs have had it easy. As at other Caribbean islands, disease and hurricanes appear to have devastated reefs in the island’s shallower waters. But overall, such natural disturbances appear to have done more damage than past military activity, the study concludes. “Germs and storms, rather than bombs … seem to have taken the worst toll,” the authors write.

Full article here.

Of course now the bombing range is a wildlife refuge, which means that the long-term prospects for the wildlife should be pretty good.