[Vision2020] Suit Claims Halliburton, KBR Sickened Base

[Tom Hansen]

"'Plaintiff witnessed the open air burn pit in operation at Balad Air 
Force Base,' the lawsuit states. 'On one occasion, he witnessed a wild dog 
running around base with a human arm in its mouth. The human arm had been 
dumped on the open air burn pit by KBR.'

Eller said he still has nightmares and has been diagnosed with adjustment 
disorder."
 
"The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks 
that 'still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when 
they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces.'"

>From the Army times at:

http://www.ArmyTimes.com

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Suit claims Halliburton, KBR sickened base

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Dec 3, 2008 18:30:40 EST
   
A Georgia man has filed a class-action lawsuit against KBR and 
Halliburton, saying the contractors exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad 
in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there.

Joshua Eller, who worked as a civilian computer-aided drafting technician 
with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, said military personnel, 
contractors and third-country nationals may have been sickened by 
contamination at the largest U.S. installation in Iraq, home to more than 
30,000 service members, Defense Department civilians and contractor 
personnel.

“Defendants promised the United States government that they would supply 
safe water for hygienic and recreational uses, safe food supplies and 
properly operate base incinerators to dispose of medical waste safely,” 
according to the lawsuit, filed Nov. 26 in U.S. District Court for the 
Southern District of Texas. “Defendants utterly failed to perform their 
promised duties.”

Eller filed his claim after he deployed in February 2006 for 10 months. 
The lawsuit claims he developed skin lesions that subsequently spread, 
filled with fluid and burst. He said they went away, then reappeared, 
followed by blisters on his feet that made it painful for him to walk. He 
said they healed, but continue to return every three to four months.

Then, Eller said he experienced vomiting, cramping and diarrhea, and 
continues to suffer severe abdominal pain.

“Plaintiff witnessed the open air burn pit in operation at Balad Air Force 
Base,” the lawsuit states. “On one occasion, he witnessed a wild dog 
running around base with a human arm in its mouth. The human arm had been 
dumped on the open air burn pit by KBR.”

Eller said he still has nightmares and has been diagnosed with adjustment 
disorder.

The lawsuit states that KBR was required to comply with military standards 
for clean water, and monitor it. Eller accused KBR of not performing water 
quality tests and of not properly treating or chlorinating water, and said 
an audit by the Defense Department backs up his claim.

A report from Wil Granger, KBR’s water quality manager for Iraq, states 
that non-potable water used for showering was not disinfected. “This 
caused an unknown population to be exposed to potentially harmful water 
for an undetermined amount of time,” according to the report. The report 
also stated the problems occurred all across Iraq and were not confined to 
Balad.

The lawsuit states there was no formalized training for KBR employees in 
proper water operations, and the company maintained insufficient 
documentation about water safety. The suit notes that former KBR employees 
Ben Carter and Ken May testified at a congressional hearing in January 
2006 that KBR used contaminated water from the Euphrates and Tigris 
rivers. Carter testified that he found the water polluted with sewage and 
that KBR did not chlorinate it.

The lawsuit states the swimming pools at Balad were also filled with 
unsafe water.

Eller also accused KBR of serving spoiled, expired and rotten food to the 
troops, as well as dishes that may have been contaminated with shrapnel

“Defendants knowingly and intentionally supplied and served food that was 
well past its expiration date, in some cases over a year past its 
expiration date,” the lawsuit states. “Even when it was called to the 
attention of the KBR food service managers that the food was expired, KBR 
still served the food to U.S. forces.”

The food included chicken, beef, fish, eggs and dairy products, which 
caused cases of salmonella poisoning, according to the lawsuit.

“KBR prevented their employees from speaking with government auditors and 
hid employees from auditors by moving them from bases when an audit was 
scheduled,” the lawsuit states. “Any employees that spoke with auditors 
were sent to more dangerous locations in Iraq as punishment.”

The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks 
that “still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when 
they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces.”

Eller also accuses KBR of failing to maintain a medical incinerator at 
Joint Base Balad, which has been confirmed by two surgeons in interviews 
with Military Times about the Balad burn pit. Instead, according to the 
lawsuit and the physicians, medical waste, such as needles, amputated body 
parts and bloody bandages were burned in the open-air pit.

“Wild dogs in the area raided the burn pit and carried off human remains,” 
the lawsuit states. “The wild dogs could be seen roaming the base with 
body parts in their mouths, to the great distress of the U.S. forces.”

According to military regulations, medical waste must be burned in an 
incinerator to prevent anyone from breathing hazardous fumes.

“On at least one occasion, defendants were attempting to improperly 
dispose of medical waste at an open-air burn pit by backing a truck full 
of medical waste up to the pit and emptying the contents onto the fire,” 
the lawsuit states. “The truck caught fire. Defendants’ fraudulent actions 
were thereby discovered by the military.”

The lawsuit also states that the contractors burned old lithium batteries 
in the pits, “causing noxious and unsafe blue smoke to drift over the 
base.”

Military Times has received more than 100 letters from troops saying they 
were sickened by fumes from the burn pits, which burned plastics, 
petroleum products, rubber, dining-facility waste and batteries.

The lawsuit asks that the plaintiffs receive monetary compensation for 
physical injuries, emotional distress, fear of future disease, and need 
for continued medical treatment and involvement, and that KBR and 
Halliburton be stripped of all revenue and profits earned “from their 
pattern of constant misconduct and callous disregard to the welfare of 
Americans serving and working in Iraq.”

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapse Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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