Troops worry smoke from waste burn pits carries toxins

The U.S. military burns waste -- including medical waste -- in pits near an Air Force base in Iraq.

Effects of toxic smoke worry troops returning from Iraq
Story Highlights
Troops worry smoke from waste burn pits carries toxins

Plastics, food and medical waste from base among trash burned

Troops stationed at U.S. base call coughing caused by smoke "Iraqi crud"

Pentagon says any harmful health affects from smoke are temporary
By Adam Levine
CNN Supervising Pentagon Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The pervasive smoke spewing from the junk heap at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq is causing many returning troops to be concerned about the effects on their long-term health.

For four years, the burn pit was a festering dump, spewing acrid smoke over the base, including housing and the hospital.

Until three incinerators were installed, the smelly pit was the only place to dispose of trash, including plastics, food and medical waste.

"At the peak, before they went to use the real industrial incinerators, it was about 500,000 pounds a day of stuff," according to a transcript of an April 2008 presentation by Dr. Bill Halperin, who heads the Occupational and Environmental Health Subcommittee at the Defense Health Board. "The way it was burned was by putting jet fuel on it."



A lawsuit filed against the burn pit operators by a contractor alleges the burn pit also contained body parts.

The story
The pervasive smoke spewing from the junk heap at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq is causing many returning troops to be concerned about the effects on their long-term health.
For four years, the burn pit was a festering dump, spewing acrid smoke over the base, including housing and the hospital.
Until three incinerators were installed, the smelly pit was the only place to dispose of trash, including plastics, food and medical waste. Read full article »

"Wild dogs in the area raided the burn pit and carried off human remains. The wild dogs could be seen roaming the base with body parts in their mouths," says the lawsuit filed in Texas federal court.

Aside from Balad, there are similar pits at bases elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some still have no incinerators.

Many of the soldiers who went through Balad since the beginning of the war had become used to "Iraqi crud," as they dubbed the symptom.

"I had a chronic cough, irritation, shortness of breath," said Dr. Chris Coppola, an Air Force surgeon who worked on base in 2005 and again in 2007, "I was coughing up phlegm, sometimes black stuff and dust."

While Coppola said he didn't work in the burn pit, he knew the medical waste was going there.
click links above for more