Rocky Bixby, a former staff sergeant of the Oregon Army National Guard, says he is disturbed by the fact that his exposure to a highly toxic chemical in Iraq, sodium dichromate, was preventable. He says he and his fellow soldiers could have used protective gear for toxic environments, but no one warned them of the substance’s dangers. (0:26)
Russell Powell, a former staff sergeant of the West Virginia Army National Guard, explains the thick orange powder, now known to be the highly toxic chemical sodium dichromate, he was exposed to at the Qarmat Ali water injection facility in Iraq. (0:20)
By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service
Exposure to a toxic substance at a water injection facility in Iraq has left U.S. soldiers in deteriorating health. The U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee conducted a hearing Monday to investigate what some Senators would describe as the Army’s lackluster response.
“The Army failed to provide proper oversight over KBR’s [military contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root] contract provisions that called for the contractor to identify, prevent and mitigate environmental hazards so as to protect the health and safety of workers and U.S. troops,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.).
Another hearing was held last year to address how KBR had exposed its own workers and hundreds of U.S. soldiers to a highly toxic chemical, sodium dichromate, at the Qarmat Ali water injection facility in the Spring and Summer of 2003.
Four National Guard soldiers testified at Monday’s hearing and told the committee about their subsequent health problems.
Russell Powell, Former Staff Sergeant of the West Virginia Army National Guard said “I and many other soldiers and KBR workers had severe nosebleeds, coughed up blood, had difficulty breathing and nausea, and/or experienced a burning sensation in our lungs and throats. After a few weeks of being the facility, many of the soldiers around me began getting lesions on their hands, arms, faces, and in the nostril area.”
The sodium dichromate was described by all four men as a thick orange powder that often filled the air during windstorms. They said they were certainly aware of the substance but even after inquiring about its effects, were told it was only a mild irritant. Despite the dismissal of the substance’s harmful nature, the soldiers were consistently having health problems and finding it difficult to breathe in the facility and surrounding areas.
Herman Gibb, PhD, an expert on health risks associated with exposure to sodium chromate, testified that the chemical is considered to be a deadly carcinogen.
“Based on my experience working at the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] on risk assessments of hexavalent chromium and my study of chromate production workers, the symptoms reported by some of the soldiers who served at Qarmat Ali are consistent with significant exposure to sodium chromate,” Gibb said.
The soldiers stated that they continue to struggle with lingering respiratory, sinus, and other serious medical conditions.
Two of the four soldiers testifying were not notified until this year that they had been exposed to the carcinogen when they received a letter from their respective state’s National Guard under which they served.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) discusses how the payment of bonuses to KBR was predetermined in the contracting agreement, which he believes, demonstrates “stunning incompetence” by those in the Department of Defense who hired this firm. (0:18)
By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News
Ryan Masseth, a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army, was killed not by an enemy bullet, but by faulty electrical wiring. He was electrocuted while showering on a United States military installation in Baghdad during January 2008.
Yet, the company who wired the building, Kellogg, Brand and Root, also known as KBR, was aware of this issue some 11 months before Staff Sgt. Masseth’s death. The U.S. government recently reclassified Staff Sgt. Masseth’s death as accidental to gross negligence on the part of KBR.
“KBR’s shoddy electrical work wasted tax payer money,” said Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing, who continued to say, “and even worse put our service members at risk, sometimes for their lives. 18 people died as a result of this negligence.”
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, was critical of the government for giving bonuses to KBR from 2004 to 2008 that totaled some $85 million, even though their work failed often to meet even the most basic standards.
The Army’s standard definition for awarding bonuses requires that the contractor’s “performance is of the highest quality that could be achieved under the contract. There are no areas of deficiencies or problems encountered during the evaluation period.”
The 2008 edition of the Defense Contract Management Report found that there were 26,205 incidents of improper wiring, 4,571 incidents of outlet box hazards, and 3,201 hazardous switches and fuses. All of these safety deficiencies pose an unneeded threat to American service people, according to Dorgan.
KBR Master Electrician, Eric Peters, estimated that 50 percent of all buildings were not wired properly, and it often took several visits before KBR’s poorly trained electricians could fix the problem. Each one of these visits was charged to the U.S. government, and therefore to the American taxpayer.
Lautenberg attributed KBR’s ability to obtain these large bonuses to the no-bid contracts given to corporations for the reconstruction of Iraq.
“I knew I could no longer work for a company so completely focused on the bottom line they would disregard the safety of their employees and those we were serving: our soldiers,” said Peters, who left KBR two months after being hired.
Jim Childs, another Master Electrician who worked for KBR, had similar gripes with the company and their complete disregard for safety.
“KBR did not do this work to any electrical code,” said Childs.
KBR even attempted to switch to the more lenient British electrical code, but upon re-inspecting the wiring according to the newly implemented standards he still discovered multiple violations.
Childs cited examples of safe buildings that KBR retrofitted and became dangerous, when he said “what had been a safe, properly wired building became a danger to those inside because the re-wiring performed by KBR was not done properly.”
When Childs attempted to solve the wiring problems with quick and cheap solutions, KBR refused to listen and wanted to re-wire the entire building, at the expense of the tax payer.
Childs travelled to Afghanistan to inspect KBR’s work their, but to his dismay, “I found the exact same code violations.”
This wiring situation, according to Childs, is an epidemic that needlessly endangers the lives of American servicemen and women.
Much like its own employees, the Department of Defense is also losing confidence in KBR’s ability.
Captain David Graff, Commander of Defense Contract Management Agency, said that “Many within the Department of Defense have lost or are losing all remaining confidence in KBR’s ability to successfully and repeatedly perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq.”
Talk Radio News Service staffer Tim Herchenroeder breaks down a government investigation into electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in a special report from Washington.
An Inspector General interim report released on July 28 found that the Department of Defense investigation of the accidental electrocution of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth revealed that Kellog, Brown, and Root (KBR) did not know about the electrical hazards prior to Maseth’s death. However, at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Cali.) disclosed documents obtained by the Committee which show that a soldier notified KBR of the electrical problems well before Maseth’s death. (more…)
Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) asks Tom Bruni, theater engineering and construction manager for Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), a contracting company in Iraq, who is responsible for the negligence that lead to the electrocutions of soldiers in Iraq. (2:06)
Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) discusses the effects of the electrical problems in Iraq and notes that finding the truth to the problem is not a Republican or Democratic aim, but an aim to find the truth.(1:05)
During a press briefing Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says that any perception that the DoD or Army contractors are as “negligent” or “callous” as to allow the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq due to electrocution is flat-out wrong. Morrell says that the DoD is concerned with the safety of U.S> soldiers. Sixteen U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq due to electrical accidents.
