Dan Hirsch speaks to tour particpants at Sage Ranch overlooking the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills between the Simi and San Fernando valleys.
Military Tour of Southern California / Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles
Click here to download a PDF of the tour guide (3.7MB PDF)
On June 10, 2006, PSR-LA offered the first-ever Military Tour of Southern California. This all-day tour took PSR members and supporters to the military sites that have shaped the world and, in some cases, the health of Californians.
Los Angeles is one of the nation's foremost military regions. Weapons are regularly shipped from our shores, from Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station to warships outside Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. Marines depart from Camp Pendleton to Iraq. Intercontinental ballistic missiles are built in Canoga Park, their engines are tested in the foothills, and test-launched from Santa Barbara's Vandenberg Air Force Base. The missile defense program, and most of our nation's military satellites are manufactured in the South Bay. The eastern half of the San Fernando Valley and entire San Gabriel Valley are EPA Superfund sites due to the military industry's sloppy environmental activities. PSR-LA's bus tour addressed the global security issues associated with these sites as well as the environmental, public health and moral repercussions of military production.
The Dirt on Our Dirt: Roll up, roll up for the military toxicity tour / Los Angeles CityBeat
Military Pollution in California
Building the most powerful military force in human history has profoundly affected American culture, morality and politics.
This unprecedented investment in building missiles, bombs, jets, bullets, rockets, submarines, ships, satellites, bombers, guns and nuclear arms has also profoundly affected the American landscape and environment. The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges that the Defense Department is the nation's leading polluter.
Indeed, the health of millions are at risk. Over the past twenty years, millions of Californians have consumed water tainted with rocket fuel. During the Cold War, millions of American children were fed radioactive milk, contaminated by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Many thousands of military workers got cancer from dealing with exotic chemicals and radioactive materials - and nearby communities were similarly exposed.
Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles believes that the military's historic mission — that of protecting Americans from harm — clearly extends to protecting Americans from the military's own environmental mess.
Southern California's health and environment has been profoundly transformed by military activity. Did you know that the entire San Gabriel Valley is an EPA Superfund site - and the eastern half of the San Fernando Valley is similarly a Superfund site due to military pollution?
