Close
KTAR.com
News
Shows
Blogs
KTAR News on 92.3FM

What Lies Beneath: Vets worry polluted base made them ill

Julie Akey looks over a map of properties that were once part of Fort Ord, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at her home in Herndon, Va. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Photos of Julie Akey during her time at Fort Ord rest on a table in her home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. What she didn’t know at the time she was at the military base was that the ground under her feet, and the water that ran through the sandy soil, was polluted with a cancer-causing class of chemicals including benzene and trichloroethylene. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This photo provided by Julie Akey shows her during her time at Fort Ord, Calif. She arrived there in 1996. With a gift for linguistics, she enlisted in the Army on the condition that she learn a new language. And so the 25-year-old was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and lived at Fort Ord. The base was mostly closed but still housed soldiers for limited purposes. (Courtesy Julie Akey via AP) Julie Akey looks over a map of properties that were once part of Fort Ord, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at her home in Herndon, Va. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Photos of Julie Akey during her time at Fort Ord rest on a table in her home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. What she didn’t know at the time she was at the military base was that the ground under her feet, and the water that ran through the sandy soil, was polluted with a cancer-causing class of chemicals including benzene and trichloroethylene. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This photo provided by Julie Akey shows her during her time at Fort Ord, Calif. She arrived there in 1996. With a gift for linguistics, she enlisted in the Army on the condition that she learn a new language. And so the 25-year-old was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and lived at Fort Ord. The base was mostly closed but still housed soldiers for limited purposes. (Courtesy Julie Akey via AP) Julie Akey looks over a map of properties that were once part of Fort Ord, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at her home in Herndon, Va. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Photos of Julie Akey during her time at Fort Ord rest on a table in her home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. What she didn’t know at the time she was at the military base was that the ground under her feet, and the water that ran through the sandy soil, was polluted with a cancer-causing class of chemicals including benzene and trichloroethylene. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This photo provided by Julie Akey shows her during her time at Fort Ord, Calif. She arrived there in 1996. With a gift for linguistics, she enlisted in the Army on the condition that she learn a new language. And so the 25-year-old was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and lived at Fort Ord. The base was mostly closed but still housed soldiers for limited purposes. (Courtesy Julie Akey via AP) Julie Akey looks over a map of properties that were once part of Fort Ord, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at her home in Herndon, Va. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Photos of Julie Akey during her time at Fort Ord rest on a table in her home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. What she didn’t know at the time she was at the military base was that the ground under her feet, and the water that ran through the sandy soil, was polluted with a cancer-causing class of chemicals including benzene and trichloroethylene. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This photo provided by Julie Akey shows her during her time at Fort Ord, Calif. She arrived there in 1996. With a gift for linguistics, she enlisted in the Army on the condition that she learn a new language. And so the 25-year-old was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and lived at Fort Ord. The base was mostly closed but still housed soldiers for limited purposes. (Courtesy Julie Akey via AP) Julie Akey looks over a map of properties that were once part of Fort Ord, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at her home in Herndon, Va. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Photos of Julie Akey during her time at Fort Ord rest on a table in her home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. What she didn’t know at the time she was at the military base was that the ground under her feet, and the water that ran through the sandy soil, was polluted with a cancer-causing class of chemicals including benzene and trichloroethylene. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This photo provided by Julie Akey shows her during her time at Fort Ord, Calif. She arrived there in 1996. With a gift for linguistics, she enlisted in the Army on the condition that she learn a new language. And so the 25-year-old was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and lived at Fort Ord. The base was mostly closed but still housed soldiers for limited purposes. (Courtesy Julie Akey via AP) Julie Akey looks over a map of properties that were once part of Fort Ord, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at her home in Herndon, Va. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Photos of Julie Akey during her time at Fort Ord rest on a table in her home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. What she didn’t know at the time she was at the military base was that the ground under her feet, and the water that ran through the sandy soil, was polluted with a cancer-causing class of chemicals including benzene and trichloroethylene. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This photo provided by Julie Akey shows her during her time at Fort Ord, Calif. She arrived there in 1996. With a gift for linguistics, she enlisted in the Army on the condition that she learn a new language. And so the 25-year-old was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and lived at Fort Ord. The base was mostly closed but still housed soldiers for limited purposes. (Courtesy Julie Akey via AP) A paraglider soars above sand dunes at Fort Ord on Wednesday, April 28, 2021, in Fort Ord, Calif. In 1990, four years before it began the process of closing for active military training, Fort Ord was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the most polluted places in the nation. Included in that pollution were dozens of chemicals, some known to cause cancer, found in the base’s drinking water. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Waves break in the Pacific Ocean beneath sand dunes at Fort Ord on Thursday, April 29, 2021, in Fort Ord, Calif. Fort Ord’s geology made its vast groundwater aquifers particularly susceptible to pollutants. Unlike modern landfills, the base’s dump had no protective liner to keep the toxins from seeping into the water table. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Unexploded ordinance safety officer Val Valdez discusses ordinance recovered from training grounds at Fort Ord on Wednesday, April 28, 2021, in Fort Ord, Calif. Hundreds of Fort Ord veterans are being diagnosed with rare blood cancers, according to a database compiled by a former soldier and shared with The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) LeVonne Stone, CEO and executive director of the Fort Ord Environmental Justice Network, sits her office in Monterey, Calif. on Aug. 24, 2021. Stone and her husband Donald were living at Fort Ord when the base shut down. LeVonne had a civilian job there, Donald had been in the 7th Infantry. The couple were part of the area’s Black community, people who the military moved to the area with their families, and who later settled in. (AP Photo/Nic Coury) A sign warns Fort Ord visitors to stay out of an area that may contain unexploded ordinance on Thursday, April 29, 2021, in Fort Ord, Calif. Among the dozens of pollutants that scientists discovered as early as 1985 was the solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE, a caustic chemical that today still exists in concentrations above the legal limit for drinking water in the aquifer. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Julie Akey looks over a map of properties that were once part of Ford Ord, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, at her home in Herndon, Va. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Julie Akey feeds chickens in her back yard, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, in Herndon, Va. “You don’t ever think you’re going to have cancer at 46. Why, why do I get this crazy cancer that no one’s ever heard of? So, I started looking for answers.” She played back in her memory the years that led up to this: Her assignments in Spain and Haiti, her stints in Guyana, Ecuador, Nigeria, at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. But as she searched for answers, one place kept popping up over and over: Fort Ord and its Superfund designation. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Photos of Julie Akey during her time at Ford Ord rest on a table in her home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. What she didn’t know at the time she was at the military base was that the ground under her feet, and the water that ran through the sandy soil, was polluted with a cancer-causing class of chemicals including benzene and trichloroethylene. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Julie Akey, center, visits with her sons, Sam and Theo, in their home in Herndon, Va., Tuesday, June 22, 2021. Akey is committed to searching for definitive links between her illness and her military service. But the cancer and harsh treatments are taxing on her body and mind, the research emotionally draining. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) This photo provided by Julie Akey shows her during her time at Ford Ord, Calif. She arrived there in 1996. With a gift for linguistics, she enlisted in the Army on the condition that she learn a new language. And so the 25-year-old was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and lived at Fort Ord. The base was mostly closed but still housed soldiers for limited purposes. (Courtesy Julie Akey via AP) Labeled with asbestos and lead warnings, sheeting covers rubble from demolished barracks at Fort Ord on Thursday, April 29, 2021, in Fort Ord, Calif. In 1990, four years before it began the process of closing for active military training, Fort Ord was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the most polluted places in the nation. Included in that pollution were dozens of chemicals, some known to cause cancer, found in the base’s drinking water. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)