FORT WINGATE, N.M. - A new study shows American Indians have been exposed to the toxic legacy of two World Wars and the Cold War, with undetonated bombs, nerve gas and live shells littering Indian country and borderlands.

The United States policy of locating dangerous military operations near Indian communities is described as national racism, reflective of apartheid practices in South Africa.

''Consider apartheid: The South African state deliberately and systematically located black communities 'downwind and downstream' of polluting industries and poorly managed waste landfill sites.''

 
The article, ''The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans'', by Gregory Hooks of Washington State University and Chad Smith, now of Texas State University-San Marcos, is published in the American Sociological Review.

In the 20th century, the United States fought and won two global wars and prevailed in the Cold War, Hooks and Smith said.

''The geopolitical demands of remaining the world's leading military power pushed the United States to produce, test and deploy weapons of unprecedented toxicity. Native Americans have been left exposed to the dangers of this toxic legacy.''

Pointing to the racism of slavery and chemical pollution in the southern United States, the authors said, ''Environmental inequality in the United States also displays the imprint of the nation's racist history.''

While relying on the Department of Defense's own data, the researchers expose facts readily available, but seldom published. Written for the field of sociology, the authors examine the human side of toxicity, war and racism.

The data is readily available, but a review of the DOD's Native American Environmental Tracking System shows the damage and impacts listed are minimal and superficial, a mere fraction of the toxicity that remains.

For instance, asbestos was cited as a hazard of buildings at Fort Wingate Army Depot, which is surrounded by the Navajo Nation and Zuni Pueblo. Navajos, however, have far greater concerns.

In 1918, the Army established the munitions-depot around an old cavalry post. Then, from 1918 until its closure in 1993, the 22,000-acre installation stored and demolished ammunition, seven miles east of Gallup. The tribes now use it jointly, with the army retaining the other half for missile testing and launching.

In 1993, when Navajos were dying from the Hantavirus and respiratory hemorrhaging, the Indian Health Service in Window Rock, Ariz., kept confidential an IHS map showing that all of the initial deaths from Hantavirus occurred in a circle around Fort Wingate Army Depot, which was being decommissioned at the time.

When the wind currents and populated areas were taken into consideration, Fort Wingate was located dead center, the nucleus of the Hantavirus deaths.

As the army depot buildings were being torn down, and Navajos were dying from Hantavirus, said Navajo Councilman George John of Red Mesa, Ariz.

''I believe it is the result of biological warfare, stored at Fort Wingate, and released during the decommissioning,'' John said.

The Army denied the allegation and the Centers for Disease Control said the Hantavirus was carried by field mice. However, CDC's determination was considered invalid by Navajos. The areas on the Navajo Nation with the largest populations of field mice are in the pinon forests of the Chuska and Tsaile mountains, the region least affected by Hantavirus. There was also no justification for the sudden outbreak.

Another case in the Department of Defense NAETS files reveals more mystery in a Navajo Nation DOD site.

''Nauaya Gra Res AX'' is listed without information, on or near the Navajo Nation, with impacts unknown. ''The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) DERP-FUDS files consist of a one-page document that states that no records are available for the site.'' The National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Region, also reported there are no records available, stated the report of the Department of Defense NAETS.

What was Nauaya Gra Res AX? The only other reference on the Internet describes it as a military site in Coconino County in Arizona. The county includes the western portion of the Navajo Nation.

Calling it environmental inequality, Hooks and Smith said the poisoning of Indian country is not explained by capitalism alone, but involves complex geopolitics. The consequences of military expansion are voracious consumption of natural resources and the deposition of toxic waste.

Hooks and Smith's study only considers closed military bases, because of national security concerns. But it opens the door to examine the environmental hazards at functioning military bases in and around Indian country.

Cold War uranium mining left unprotected Navajo miners dead in the Four Corners region, but is not listed by the DOD because it was carried out under corporate contract.

Also, research often fails to reveal the combined toxicity generated from military bases, numerous power plants, coal mines and oil and gas wells in and around the Navajo Nation.

Hooks and Smith said the wars of the 20th century have been unprecedented in their ferocity and lethality. Political sociology must examine the destructiveness of war and the unevenness of ''sacrifices'' for national security.

Their research shows that American Indians were first the victims of physical genocide and later the targets of a slow and toxic genocide.

''That is, over the course of the 19th century, through a process that would be referred to as ethnic cleansing in contemporary debates, the United States forced nearly all Native Americans onto reservations located in western states.''

As the United States became the world's leading military power, it built a vast military complex in the same western states in which Americans Indians were concentrated.

The military chose federally owned and American Indian lands, often in close proximity and primarily in the west that tended to be too dry, remote, or barren to attract colonizers and corporations.

As this data slowly becomes public, the inequality has come to be identified as ''environmental genocide.'' With a domino effect, once a locale has been seriously degraded, it often attracts additional pollution.

Indian country is now riddled with the United States' ''national sacrifice'' and ''human sacrifice zones.''

On former bombing ranges, such as the South Unit of the Badlands on Pine Ridge tribal land in South Dakota, live bombs remain.

The government estimates that unexploded ordnances - including mines, nerve gases and explosive shells - contaminates 20 million to 50 million acres of land in the United States.

It will take up to 1,000 years to return this land to safe and productive use.

''Some may be so damaged, we may not attempt to clean it up,'' Hooks and Smith said.

Access to information about individual tribes and installations may be found in a database maintained by the Department of Defense. A portion of the information is only available to tribal members with registration. Visit: https://naets.usace.army.mil/web/tribe/tribe.cfm.

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