Federal Court Green Lights CHamoru Lawsuit to Protect Ancestral Lands, Guam Beach from Air Force’s Open Detonation of Bombs

Hagåtña, Guam —

Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian (now known as Prutehi Guåhan), represented by Earthjustice, won an appeal in the 9th Circuit Court this month, reviving their lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force for violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The case, now returning to the Guam District Court, challenges the Air Force’s failure to conduct an environmental review before deciding to detonate bombs and other explosive hazardous waste on Tarague Beach in northern Guam. The ruling confirms that the Air Force can be sued for such violations and that Prutehi has standing to proceed with the challenge.

The 9th Circuit Court ruled that the Air Force cannot sidestep NEPA whenever it needs a permit for harmful activities. The law requires the Air Force to assess the environmental impacts of its plan to open burn and open detonate (OB/OD) hazardous waste on Tarague Beach, and to consider less environmentally damaging alternatives before making a decision. By failing to do so, the Air Force denied Prutehi and the public the chance to provide input before the Air Force made up its mind. The court also rejected the Air Force’s attempt to shift responsibility to Guam Environmental Protection Agency, emphasizing that public engagement after the Air Force made its decision does not ensure the agency fully considers environmental trade-offs.

The Air Force has continued detonating hazardous waste explosives on Tarague Beach under an expired permit while the case moves through the courts. Guam EPA enables this by failing to reject the Air Force’s clearly deficient permit renewal application, pending since 2021.

“The Air Force’s open detonation operations are contaminating our land and water with their toxic waste,” said Monaeka Flores of Prutehi Guåhan. “We must fight to protect and preserve our aquifer, our food resources and traditional fishing grounds, our sacred sites, and our coastlines that contain traditional medicines for us and for the future generations of Guåhan. It’s time for the district court to hear our arguments and hold the Air Force accountable.”

Prutehi’s lawsuit demands the Air Force consider alternatives to OB/OD on ancestral CHamoru lands seized by the military after WWII. These operations risk permanently contaminating the area with toxic chemicals and unexploded ordnance, preventing its return to the original families. OB/OD releases harmful substances like RDX, HMX, TNT, perchlorate, and dioxins — chemicals linked to cancer, neurological damage, and groundwater contamination — into the land, air, and ocean. The Air Force could avoid these cultural and environmental harms by exploring alternative technologies and locations, including sites outside Guam.

“The Ninth Circuit firmly rejected the Air Force’s attempt to insulate from judicial review its failure to comply with NEPA before making its decision to continue blowing up bombs on the beach in Guam,” said Earthjustice attorney David Henkin. “We are pleased that Prutehi will finally get its day in court.”

Background:

The Air Force first received a permit to conduct OB/OD operations at Andersen Air Force Base in 1982, but no open burning has occurred in the past two decades. The Air Force has never conducted the legally required environmental review for OB/OD operations, despite the potentially significant harm to the surrounding environment. The OB/OD site is sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean (which lies about 180 feet away) and the jungle (80 feet away), and it sits above a shallow, unconfined aquifer.

OB/OD operations could contaminate the aquifer, which supplies drinking water to more than 80% of Guam’s population. Contaminants also could enter the ocean, harming local families that frequent nearby beaches and culturally significant fishing sites. The explosions from open detonation on the bare sand of Tarague Beach threaten harm to endangered green sea turtles, which nest there, and migratory seabirds that use the beach.

In 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a report on “Alternatives for the Demilitarization of Conventional Munitions” that concluded that “[v]iable alternative technologies exist within the demilitarization enterprise” for almost all the munitions in the military’s demilitarization stockpile, including munitions that the Air Force seeks to treat with OB/OD at Andersen AFB. The study further concluded that, as compared to OB/OD, the alternative technologies would all have “lower emissions and less of an environmental and public health impact.”