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- WASHINGTON -
The story ends
- for now, anyway - with a piece of paper dated
September 20, quietly conveyed
two weeks ago to the 'Federal Register,'
where it was published as per
the requirements of United States law,
and where it went virtually unnoticed,
as so many laws, regulations,
and executive orders do. This order, however,
was unique in that it
spares the Pentagon from sharing secrets about what
is arguably the
world's most mysterious military installation.
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- The secrets in question have to
do with environmental
matters, at a place the directive characterizes
as "the Air Force's
operating location near Groom Lake,
Nevada""better known as Area
51.
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- It's a popular culture
phenomenon, Area 51, popping up
in everything from the 1996 smash movie
Independence Day to episodes of
the X-Files to scores of Web sites.
There's even a book, Area 51: The Dreamland
Chronicles, that focuses on
its "culture," its status as a mecca
for the parishioners of
the modern-day church of ufology. As every possessor
of The Truth About
the Government knows, Area 51 is where the air force
tests and tinkers
with the alien technology it gets"by dint of either
rapacious
force or covert friendship with the grays from beyond.
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- Whether or not Area 51 is a
haven for extraterrestrial
mechanics and cross-planetary conspiracies
isn't likely to be quickly settled
to anyone's satisfaction. What seems
beyond dispute is that, at the very
least, the base is a testing site
for aircraft systems funded and developed
under spooky "black
budget" programs. But as ongoing lawsuits
filed on behalf of some
of the site's employees have shown, this work is
considered to be so
clandestine that workers adversely affected by toxic
materials used and
destroyed there cannot even be told what it was to which
they were
exposed. Two workers"Robert Frost and Wally Kasza"died
wondering just what it was that had slowly and painfully done them
in.
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- Any
way you look at it, it's a travesty: Sick people
who've served their
country's government aren't being told what's tormenting
them. Yet when
most people hear "Area 51," it goes to the "fringe"
node of their brains, the part that looks at things with a more amused,
entertained eye than a serious or critical one. Which is why legal scholar
Jonathan Turley, director of the Environmental Crimes Project at George
Washington University's National Law Center, decries the way the forces
behind popular culture have hyped and framed Area 51.
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- "Two good mendied at Area
51.They weren't killed
by aliens. They may have been killed by the
government, but through dangers
that were distinctly earthbound,
dangers that had nothing to do with extraterrestrial
beings,"
Turley quietly seethes. "I've long felt that the military
has been
delighted with the circus environment over aliens at Area 51,
because
it's not only a welcome distraction, but it makes our entire litigation
look ridiculous by association, when our litigation has nothing to do with
aliens." He pauses. "I wish people were as concerned about Wally
Kasza as they seem to be titillated by some mythic alien
presence."
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- At 38, Turley is still idealistic, a high-profile Washington
lawyer who relishes testifying before Congress as much as he revels in
tending to his one-year-old son. Nonetheless, the lawsuits he filed
against
the government earlier this decade for the survivors of two
dead Area 51
workers and a number of anonymous plaintiffs have made his
life resemble
something between A Civil Action and The X-Files. At the
air force's insistence,
a federal judge has classified his entire
office at GWU; if anyone else
crosses the threshold, they are in
violation of national security law and
a court order, and can be
arrested. Almost all of his interviews with clients
have been conducted
in dimly lit parking garages at night.
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- Which was where he last saw
Wally Kasza, in 1995. A 69-year-old
sheet metal worker from Area 51,
Wally had replaced his friend Robert "Frosty"
Frost as an
industrial supervisor at the base after Frosty died in 1990.
Frosty had
been afflicted with illnesses that took the form of constant
respiratory distress and a painful skin condition that he and other
workers
called, with no exaggeration, "fish scales." The
symptoms were
manifesting in others, too. Which is why Kasza and his
codefendants had
sought out Turley.
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- For years, they explained, the
military officers who
run Area 51 had been taking advantage of its
"black" status to
get rid of toxic waste in the most
expedient"and most illegal"way
possible: burn it in open
pits. (The legal logic at Area 51 was simple:
How can any law apply to
something that doesn't officially exist?) After
Frosty died, doctors
determined his liver had failed thanks to high amounts
of dioxin and
dibenzofurans, plastic- and solvent-based chemicals taken
into the body
via smoke inhalation. Like Frosty, Kasza's skin would crack
and bleed;
he'd hack up a lung every night; now kidney cancer was about
to claim
him. As they sat in the darkened garage, Kasza asked Turley: If
he
died, could his wife take his place in the lawsuit? "He really
wanted to live long enough to see some justice at Area 51," Turley
sighs.
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- Prompted by the Washington watchdog Project on Government
Oversight, Turley has taken point on two cases against the government:
Frost v. Perry, directed at the Pentagon, and Kasza v. Browner, directed
at the EPA. The case against the Pentagon has often resembled something
out of Alice in Wonderland. For months, the air force argued that the
plaintiffs
had no case because Area 51 didn't exist. When Turley would
introduce evidence
to debunk this claim, the government would promptly
classify it. It was
only after Turley threatened to put on the stand
the Russian embassy's
military attaché"who would be more
than happy to disclose under
oath what years of Soviet-era intelligence
gathering had revealed about
Area 51"that the government agreed to
refer to "an operating
location near Groom Lake."
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- The lawsuits have
yielded mixed results: While the workers
and survivors of workers at
Area 51 still don't know what they were exposed
to (they've never sued
seeking damages, just information), a judge has
ordered the EPA to
inspect the facility for compliance with federal environmental
law.
According to one law, the EPA has to make its findings public, something
the government doesn't want to do. And according to another law, the
government
doesn't have to; under USC 6961, if the president says it's
"in the
paramount interest" of the U.S. that such information
be classified,
that's the way it is.
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- But in 1997 a judge determined
that Area 51 requires
an annual certification to exempt it from public
environmental disclosure"a
written confirmation that, despite all
the years arguing otherwise, Area
51 does in fact exist. While this
doesn't do a lot to help the workers
who were exposed to toxic waste,
it's a landmark in using the law to pierce
the veil of government
secrecy. Last year, Clinton issued his first annual
directive exempting
Area 51 from environmental disclosure; two months ago,
he renewed
it.
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- Even
though Turley's not privy to the EPA's reports,
his clients say that
since the EPA has been allowed in, the methods by
which Area 51 gets
rid of hazardous waste have "dramatically changed."
The
problem, says Turley, is the military's other secret bases. "Area
51 was the crown jewel of black facilities"the military has fought
hard to protect it as kind of an enclave of secrecy," he says.
"But
there are other black facilities, and I'm not convinced the
military has
learned its lesson. The officers who committed these
crimes have not been
punished. And the president of the United States
has intervened to protect
them from [prosecution for] these criminal
acts. That sends a message,
and not the right one."
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- Tell us what you
think.
editor@villagevoice.com
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