Stardate 20010614.1813 (On Screen): The Puerto Ricans have won, sort of. Depending on what, exactly, it was that they were trying to win, that is. In a few years the US Navy will stop using a section of the island for a bombing range. That seems to be important to some there, and I won't debate that.
But I hope that the folks there realize that the part of the island which has been used this way for so long won't be safe to use for any other purpose for decades, if ever. Over the course of years, hundreds of thousands of projectiles of various sizes, nearly all explosive, have been fired or dropped at the Vieques range, and there will have been some which didn't explode. It's not that easy to find them all; some will be buried quite deep. Something like this happened in Hawaii, and the process of cleaning it up is going very slowly. And the French Army is still finding and cleaning up shells left over from World War I, still deadly after more than 80 years. The kinds of unexploded munitions buried at Vieques don't substantially decay with time, and won't weather because they're sealed inside metal. (discuss)
