Resident concerns raised as air tests begin at Gricignano

Resident concerns raised as air tests begin at Gricignano
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, March 21, 2008

NAPLES, Italy — It’s nice that the Navy and Italian government are testing the air quality at the Gricignano Support Site, but what happens if results determine the air is unhealthy, asked Sarah Wafford.

“By that time, the damage is done. Why should we be their experiments?” said the exasperated 25-year-old, who is about 10 weeks pregnant.

Since moving into base housing at Gricignano about a month ago, Wafford said she sometimes wakes and feels as though she’s “dying for fresh air.”

On Thursday, U.S. and Italians officials placed a van-mounted air monitoring station in the back corner of the support site base. The system will examine weather conditions and test for possible harmful chemicals that could be present in the air, said Felice Nunziata, a nuclear physicist with the Agenzia Regionale Protezione Ambientale Campania, the Italian equivalent to the Environmental Protection Agency.

For a minimum of 15 days beginning Friday, the station will collect air samples to test for the possible presence of chemicals such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and benzene, to name a few, he said.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53478