Carcinogens Found at Montana Nuclear Missile Sites, Cancers Reported
Airmen from the 341st Missile Maintenance Squadron prepare a payload transporter March 27, 2019, at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. Missile maintainers prepare PTs for various assignments in the missile complex. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Chiyanna White.
By TARA COPP, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centers at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses.
A new cleanup effort has been ordered.
The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a release Monday. In those samples, two launch facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana showed PCB levels higher than the thresholds recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.
PCBs are oily or waxy substances that have been identified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.
Airman 1st Class Jackson Ligon, left, and Senior Airman Jonathan Marinaccio, 341st Missile Maintenance Squadron technicians, connect a re-entry system to a spacer on an intercontinental ballistic missile during a Simulated Electronic Launch-Minuteman test Sept. 22, 2020, at a launch facility near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Mont. The Air Force has temporarily closed two nuclear launch facilities after finding unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen in air samples at a Montana missile base where a striking number of men and women who served have reported cancer diagnoses. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Daniel Brosam.
In response, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, has directed “immediate measures to begin the cleanup process for the affected facilities and mitigate exposure by our airmen and Guardians to potentially hazardous conditions.”
After a military briefing was obtained by The Associated Press in January showing that at least nine current or former missileers at Malmstrom were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare blood cancer, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine launched a study to look at cancers among the entire missile community checking for the possibility of clusters of the disease.
And there could be hundreds more cancers of all types, based on new data from a grassroots group of former missile launch officers and their surviving family members.
According to the Torchlight Initiative, at least 268 troops who served at nuclear missile sites, or their surviving family members, have self-reported being diagnosed with cancer, blood diseases or other illnesses over the past several decades.
Staff Sgt. Eric McElroy, 40th Helicopter Squadron special mission aviator, provides a tour of a UH-1N helicopter to airmen on a mission orientation tour at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. The tour is part of inprocessing for first-term airmen and incoming personnel. The 40th HS is one of many stops made on the tour. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Delia Martinez.
At least 217 of those reported cases are cancers, at least 33 of them non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
What's notable about those reported numbers is that the missileer community is very small. Only a few hundred airmen serve as missileers at each of the country's three silo-launched Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile bases any given year. There have been only about 21,000 missileers in total since the Minuteman operations began in the early 1960s, according to the Torchlight Initiative.
For some context, in the U.S. general population there are about 403 new cancer cases reported per 100,000 people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma affects an estimated 19 of every 100,000 people annually, according to the American Cancer Society.
Minutemen III silo fields are based at Malmstrom, F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.
Senior Airman Marco Roberto, 741st Maintenance Squadron mechanical and pneudraulics team chief, uses binoculars to check the inside of a Transport Erector Replacement Program (TERP) vehicle May 8, 2023, at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. The TERP revitalized the legacy transporter erector by replacing and refurbishing the parts of the more than 30 year-old vehicles becoming increasingly difficult to repair. It also enabled the missile handling teams to perform missile emplacement and removal tasks more effectively and efficiently throughout the missile. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Mary Bowers.
Missileers are male and female military officers who serve in underground launch control centers where they are responsible for monitoring, and if needed, launching fields of silo-based nuclear weapons. Two missileers spend sometimes days at a time on watch in underground bunkers, ready to turn the key and fire Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles if ordered to do so by the president.
The Minuteman III silos and underground control centers were built more than 60 years ago. Much of the electronics and infrastructure is decades old. Missileers have raised health concerns multiple times over the years about ventilation, water quality and potential toxins they cannot avoid as they spend 24 to 48 hours on duty underground.
The Air Force discovery of PCBs occurred as part of site visits by its bio-environmental team from June 22 to June 29 in the Air Force's ongoing larger investigation into the number of cancers reported among the missile community. During the site visits a health assessment team collected water, soil, air and surface samples from each of the missile launch facilities.
At Malmstrom, of the 300 surface swipe samples, 21 detected PCBs. Of those, 19 were below levels set by the EPA requiring mitigation and two were above. No PCBs were detected in any of the 30 air samples. The Air Force is still waiting for test results from F.E. Warren and Minot for surface and air samples, and for all bases for the water and soil samples.
Read Next: Cancer Deaths Among Veterans Are Rising – What’s Being Done To Prevent It?
The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting, founded in 1846.
BRCC and Bad Moon Print Press team up for an exclusive, limited-edition T-shirt design!
BRCC partners with Team Room Design for an exclusive T-shirt release!
Thirty Seconds Out has partnered with BRCC for an exclusive shirt design invoking the God of Winter.
Lucas O'Hara of Grizzly Forge has teamed up with BRCC for a badass, exclusive Shirt Club T-shirt design featuring his most popular knife and tiomahawk.
Coffee or Die sits down with one of the graphic designers behind Black Rifle Coffee's signature look and vibe.
Biden will award the Medal of Honor to a Vietnam War Army helicopter pilot who risked his life to save a reconnaissance team from almost certain death.
Ever wonder how much Jack Mandaville would f*ck sh*t up if he went back in time? The American Revolution didn't even see him coming.
A nearly 200-year-old West Point time capsule that at first appeared to yield little more than dust contains hidden treasure, the US Military Academy said.
