Latest news with #JerryRedfern
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
New Mexico Appeals Court orders dismissal of oil and gas pollution lawsuit
A pumpjack operates north of Carlsbad, NM. The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the state violated the state constituion and failied to protect residents from oil and gas pollution.(Photo by Jerry Redfern / Capital & Main) The New Mexico Court of Appeals ordered a lower court Tuesday to toss a case alleging that state officials failed to protect residents from oil and gas pollution in violation of the New Mexico State Constitution. In the order issued Tuesday, justices in the New Mexico Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's ruling and concluded that the judiciary does not have the power to address the plaintiffs' claims. 'The relief Plaintiffs seek—as presented by their complaint—exceeds the boundary of that which the judiciary is authorized to grant,' wrote Chief Judge Jacqueline Medina. Justices ordered the lower court to dismiss the complaint. The civil lawsuit was first filed in May of 2023 on behalf of environmental groups, youth activists and individuals from the Pueblos, the Permian Basin and Navajo Nation against the Legislature, New Mexico's top officials and rulemaking bodies on oil and gas. The lawsuit alleged the state government failed to limit permitting of oil and gas production and did not adequately enforce pollution laws, which plaintiffs argued is a violation of a 1971 amendment to the state constitution, called the Pollution Control Clause. 'The protection of the state's beautiful and healthful environment is hereby declared to be of fundamental importance to the public interest, health, safety and the general welfare. The legislature shall provide for control of pollution and control of despoilment of the air, water and other natural resources of this state, consistent with the use and development of these resources for the maximum benefit of the people.' Further, the plaintiffs argued the state's actions around oil and gas production and pollution discriminated against Indigenous people, youth and frontline communities. Plaintiffs requested the courts rule that the state has a constitutional duty to prevent pollution — similar to landmark rulings in education and workers' compensation — and asked the courts to 'suspend additional permitting of oil and gas wells' until the state is in compliance. Moreover, plaintiffs asked the courts order state government to install a regulatory structure and plan to protect from pollution. Attorneys for the State of New Mexico argued the ruling oversteps separations of power between the branches of government, and that youth and frontline communities are not protected classes and there's no discriminatory intent. In June 2024, First District Judge Matthew Wilson dismissed the plaintiffs' claims against the Legislature, but allowed the case to continue moving through the courts to determine if a constitutional right to pollution control exists. On Tuesday, the Appeals Court determined the state Constitution does not grant any specific right 'to any individual or group, to be free from a given amount of pollution. Nor can it be inferred to create an enforceable right to a beautiful and healthful environment,' Medina wrote. Additionally, justices agreed with the state's arguments that frontline and youth are not classifications for discriminatory treatment. Gail Evans, lead counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, said plaintiffs plan to appeal Tuesday's decision. 'New Mexicans amended our constitution 50 years ago to protect our residents from pollution. With this terrible ruling, the court has eviscerated our constitutionally protected rights,' Evans said in a written statement. 'This will lead to more air pollution, more contaminated land and water, and more sickness in our communities. We'll continue our fight against the filthy oil and gas industry on behalf of all New Mexicans and will be appealing this decision to the state Supreme Court.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NM reps say GOP bill will gut Medicaid and also reduce oil money that could help state save it
An oil well pumps during a snowstorm in the checkerboard region of northwest New Mexico. Proposed reductions in federal oil and gas royalty rates could further hurt New Mexicans covered by Medicaid, state and federal officials said. (Photo by Jerry Redfern / Capital & Main) The 'big, beautiful' bill making its way through the United States House of Representatives this week not only would cut federal spending on healthcare on which 40% of New Mexicans rely, but state and federal officials say it also would reduce revenue the state could use to pay for that healthcare itself. One provision in the 1,116-page spending bill that is making progress in the House would reduce federal oil and gas royalties from 16.75% to 12.5%, undoing a hike Congress and President Joe Biden approved in the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Federal law requires 50% of royalties on federal land to be distributed to states in which production took place, which in 2024 meant that New Mexico received $2.88 billion from federal royalties, the biggest share of any state, according to the State Land Office. Reducing the rate back to pre-2022 levels will mean about $480 million less in total royalties the federal government collects between now and 2031, according to the office. In New Mexico, those funds are regularly invested in trust funds the state amasses to pay for services like early childhood education or other programs. U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) said in a news conference Friday decrying the bill that the provision amounts to a double-whammy for New Mexico, which relies heavily on oil and gas revenue and is also where Medicaid finances more than half of all births. Republicans are helping oil companies increase their sizable profits while making it harder for New Mexico to pay for healthcare, she said. New Mexico mom, advocates urge Congress to protect safety net programs 'At a time when the Republicans are going to make states pay more for Medicaid, they are taking away the money that New Mexico uses to fund Medicaid,' Leger Fernandez said during a news conference Friday. 'This is why we are so angry about this bill. It is a double impact on New Mexico.' Leger Fernandez cited a May 5 letter Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard wrote to her office that laid out concerns about the Republicans' approach to federal oil and gas extraction. 'As the top recipient of federal mineral leasing distributions, the proposed reduction in the minimum royalty rate… will hit New Mexico's working families at a time when other federal funding for essential services is being slashed by the Trump Administration,' Garcia Richard wrote in the letter, which her office provided to Source New Mexico. This legislative session, state lawmakers created a new Medicaid Trust Fund that aims to generate enough in interest to pay for at least some of what the federal government could cut in Medicaid spending. New Mexico has the highest per-capita Medicaid enrollment in the nation, 34%, according to the non-partisan health policy research organization KFF. The state is expected to need $8.9 billion in federal Medicaid funding to support its operations this fiscal year. For perspective, New Mexico's record operating budget for this fiscal year is $10.8 billion. NM budget expert expects Medicaid work requirements out of Congress It's not entirely clear, however, how money in federal oil and gas royalties would make its way into the Medicaid Trust Fund that lawmakers created for the New Mexico Treasurer's Office to oversee. The bill creating the fund does not specify, saying only that the fund 'consists of distributions, appropriations, gifts, grants and donations.' State Land Office spokesperson Joey Keefe referred comment to the State Treasurer's Office. A spokesperson there did not immediately respond to a request for that information Monday morning. In addition to her concerns about the lost federal royalties, Garcia Richard noted that the bill would require the federal government to lease land for oil and gas extraction to companies, even if it's not in the best interest of taxpayers, by requiring quarterly lease sales, sometimes without competitive bids. 'By enabling companies to get leases directly without a competitive auction and by requiring that an arbitrary percentage of lands [be] offered at quarterly lease sales, the federal government (and the states that share in this revenue) will receive less value than they should for the parcels,' Garcia Richard wrote. She urged Leger Fernandez and other members of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee to vote against the proposal. Despite her effort, the committee voted to advance the bill two days later.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Many on Navajo Nation blindsided by hydrogen pipeline change
An abandoned oil well sits on a hillside on Tribal land near Farmington, New Mexico. (Photo: Jerry Redfern) The company at the center of a controversial green energy project connecting New Mexico and Arizona has changed plans for a key component: A much-debated pipeline that would have carried climate-friendly hydrogen will instead carry natural gas, and possibly a natural gas-hydrogen blend at a future date. Unlike hydrogen, natural gas, blended or not, contributes to climate warming both in its production and when it is burned for energy. The pipeline is part of a much larger project by Tallgrass Energy Partners LP that would create a hydrogen economy centered in Farmington in the northwest corner of New Mexico. Plans include hydrogen production, a massive hub to inject carbon deep underground, repurposing a mothballed coal-fired power plant as a hydrogen-fired power plant, and pipelines connecting the various parts. The plans also included one pipeline to carry hydrogen across the Navajo Nation to markets in Arizona and farther afield. Tallgrass decided to change what would be delivered in the pipeline earlier this year, and the news surprised many. Starting in 2021, the company, working through its subsidiary GreenView, carried out a public relations campaign along the proposed pipeline route through the Navajo Nation, hyping the green benefits of hydrogen. Switching to natural gas or a gas-hydrogen blend would dramatically reduce or eliminate those benefits. This story originally appeared on Capital & Main and is republished with permission. Tallgrass and GreenView also negotiated directly with the top level of the Navajo government about the project, most recently Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren. But when asked about the change to natural gas, Bidtah Becker, chief legal counsel for the president's office, said, 'It clearly was a decision that had been made long before we were informed.' Many embraced the project in a region that has seen declining oil and gas production and associated revenues from the surrounding San Juan Basin, as well as the closure of a large coal-fired power plant and its mine. The project also drew sharp skepticism on and off the Navajo Nation, where more than a century of industrial mineral extraction and production has failed to produce widespread economic benefits to residents. Unlike fossil fuels, many see hydrogen as a miracle fuel. It produces only water vapor as a byproduct when run through an electrolyzer to make electricity and it produces no climate-warming carbon dioxide when burned, though it does emit other noxious air pollutants. However, common methods of producing hydrogen use natural gas as a feedstock, creating large quantities of climate-warming carbon dioxide that need to be permanently buried underground — which is difficult, expensive and often unsuccessful — if the fuel is to be considered climate friendly. Steven Davidson, vice president of government and public affairs at Tallgrass, said the change 'does not indicate a departure from our commitment to clean hydrogen production and [carbon dioxide] sequestration. Instead, we are strategically positioning the project to meet both current and future energy demands.' The change would make a pipeline capable of carrying natural gas and a blend of natural gas and hydrogen in the future, Davidson said: 'In short, definitely no deviation from our focus on clean hydrogen as a decarbonization solution.' That solution includes working with the Navajo Nation, he added. 'We have invested four years of our time and resources in true partnerships to invest with the Navajo people,' he said. 'We are a group of one in that respect.' Joe Romm, a senior research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media and a former acting assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, is doubtful about the project's overall prospects. 'In the real world, you don't see [projects] like this happen a lot, something so complicated,' he said. So big hydrogen projects are the result of 'powerful backers. And the most powerful is the oil and gas industry.' The complication starts with transporting blended gas. 'Blending doesn't make a lot of sense. You can't blend a lot' because the chemical nature of hydrogen 'will basically tunnel through and destroy normal steel and a lot of other things,' Romm said. By comparison, long-distance natural gas pipelines have been around for decades (though they aren't risk-free). ''You – Don't forget to add author ''You – Don't forget to add author .' ' author='Joe Romm, Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media'/] Then there is the basic math of the most common method of making hydrogen from natural gas: steam methane reformation. According to researchers at Texas A&M University, it requires 3.16 kilograms of natural gas and another 9.74 kilograms of water to make a single kilogram of hydrogen. That process also creates 8.47 kilograms of climate-warming carbon dioxide. The formula doesn't include the fuel needed to power the process or the energy needed to sequester the carbon dioxide to keep the hydrogen's green credentials. That carbon sequestration hub would be another sticking point because carbon capture projects are hard. 'You can't find a successful major carbon capture and storage [project],' Romm said. Furthermore, natural gas production itself is an inherently leaky process, and the methane in the gas is 80 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. With all of these complications inherent in hydrogen production and transport, Romm said, 'Just pipe the natural gas.' The pipeline change came at roughly the same time that a member of the Arizona Corporation Commission asked the commission to study building more natural gas pipelines and storage facilities for the state. Among other duties, the commission oversees pipeline safety and power utilities. Nick Myers, the Arizona commission vice chair, said he hadn't heard of the GreenView pipeline project when he asked the commission to study such projects. 'To the extent I may have been informed, but don't remember, it was only in passing,' he said. 'I would love to talk to someone just to be in the loop.' Tallgrass' Davidson said, 'We were not involved in the [commission's] decision.' But, he added, 'It's not surprising,' considering that AI data centers alone are projected to consume up to 16.5% of the state's power grid by 2030. 'None of the [other] pipelines that are proposed to be built into Arizona, to the best of our knowledge, provide any value to the Navajo Nation,' Davidson added. So far, Myers' February memo to the commission has prompted 17 letters on possible new natural gas infrastructure in Arizona. All but two were in favor, and six specifically mentioned the GreenView natural gas pipeline. One of those letters was co-authored by New Mexico state Rep. Meredith Dixon (D-Albuquerque), who promoted and regularly voted in favor of fossil-fuel-friendly legislation during the state's two-month legislative session earlier this year. She also cosponsored legislation that set up a framework for the state to manage carbon sequestration projects such as the planned CarbonSAFE hub in northwest New Mexico that's part of Tallgrass' overarching hydrogen project. (Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the bill into law on April 7.) Dixon's co-author of both the letter and the legislation was state Sen. William Sharer (R-Farmington), the Senate minority floor leader and a longtime champion of oil and natural gas production. His district covers a large portion of the San Juan Basin in northwest New Mexico. Among the perceived benefits, the legislators championed the natural gas pipeline as 'a unique opportunity to uplift the Navajo Nation,' despite the fact that oil and gas have been produced for more than 100 years on the economically challenged reservation. The letter doesn't note them talking with anyone from the Nation, either. In an email, Dixon said, 'Even as [Sharer] and I disagree on some principles, we agree on the important role of carbon storage.' Dixon didn't say how she heard about the GreenView pipeline change, apparently before many on the Navajo Nation did. But she did offer reasons for supporting it: the argument of natural gas as a so-called 'bridge fuel' (which is often–debunked); national and international security risks in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (which are debatable); and the real lack of other readily available power sources for energy-intensive manufacturing processes and transport. Groups ranging from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the Rocky Mountain Institute support using hydrogen in energy-intensive industrial processes and heavy transport — but not elsewhere. That's because for the past few years, grid-scale solar and wind energy have been cheaper to install than any fossil fuel. In fact, solar projects are growing across the Navajo Nation as part of a federal program to electrify Native lands. And the Environment America Research & Policy Center ranked New Mexico fourth in its top 10 list of states for renewable energy. 'My letter is intended to highlight potential opportunities created by this project,' Dixon said. 'I fully expect Tallgrass to engage with all affected tribal and non-tribal communities.' Three more letters that share similar structure and language and came from businesses on or near the Mexican border may be the work of LS2group, which calls itself 'a bipartisan public relations, government affairs, public affairs, and marketing firm.' Josh Rubin, the vice president of a cross-border manufacturing facilitator in Nogales, Arizona, 300 miles from the pipeline, told Capital & Main that a friend at LS2group asked him to send the letter, though he wasn't overly familiar with the project. A second letter, signed by a Holly Jensen claiming to own a Groovy Hues painting franchise in Tucson, couldn't be verified. Neither name is affiliated with a registered business in Tucson, though there is a Groovy Hues 113 miles away in Phoenix, registered to a different person. And a call center operator for Groovy Hues said the company doesn't do business in Tucson. A third letter writer, Michael Sene, who runs a truck repair shop on the border, didn't respond to a call and message from Capital & Main. LS2group also did not return calls from Capital & Main. Jessica Keetso (Diné) is deeply familiar with the GreenView project. For three years as an outreach coordinator for the Native group Tó Nizhóní Ání, or Sacred Water Speaks, she led an educational campaign opposing the hydrogen pipeline. (She recently left the group to attend law school.) Even so, she first heard about the change from hydrogen to natural gas from Capital & Main, though she suspected something was in the works. 'We knew something was happening because of how little presence Tallgrass had in the community' in recent months, she said. 'I think the Nation was always uncertain about the market for hydrogen,' she added. As for the pipeline change, 'I think it's really going to push the Navajo Nation for more benefits.' Keetso said tribal agencies had already devoted a lot of time and energy working on the initial GreenView proposal, and changing the fuel could restart the whole process. She said that when she asked regulatory agencies on the Navajo Nation what would be required for changing the long-debated hydrogen pipeline to natural gas, they hadn't heard of it. 'People freaked out,' she said.
The Intercept
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
The Vietnam War Is Still Killing People, 50 Years Later
Support Us © THE INTERCEPT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED A farmer stands behind a live mortar he found in the field behind his home in Laos, near a branch of the former Ho Chi Minh Trail. Photo: Jerry Redfern/LightRocket/Getty Images When a tank crashed through the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon 50 years ago today, the Potemkin state of South Vietnam collapsed, and the Vietnamese war of independence, fought in its final phase against the overwhelming military might of the United States, came to a close. America lost its war, but Vietnam was devastated. 'Sideshow' wars in Cambodia and Laos left those countries equally ravaged. The United States unleashed an estimated 30 billion pounds of munitions in Southeast Asia. At least 3.8 million Vietnamese died violent war deaths, an estimated 11.7 million South Vietnamese were forced from their homes, and up to 4.8 million were sprayed with toxic herbicides like Agent Orange. April 30, 1975, was also, the New Yorker's Jonathan Schell observed at the time, 'the first day since September 1, 1939, when the Second World War began, that something like peace reigned throughout the world.' Peace on paper, perhaps, but the violence never really ended. With a South Vietnamese flag at his feet, a victorious North Vietnamese soldier waves a Communist flag from a tank outside Independence Palace in Saigon, April 30, 1975, the day the South Vietnamese government surrendered, ending the Vietnam War. Photo: Yves Billy/AP The U.S. did whatever it could to cripple the reunited Vietnam. Instead of delivering billions in promised reconstruction aid, it pressured international lenders like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to reject Vietnamese requests for assistance. The newly unified nation of farmers had no choice but to till rice fields filled with unexploded American bombs, artillery shells, rockets, cluster munitions, landmines, grenades, and more. The war's toll continued to rise, with 100,000 more casualties in Vietnam in the 50 years since the conflict technically came to a close and many more in the neighboring nations of Southeast Asia. After all that, America could have learned something. At the cost of over 58,000 American lives and $1 trillion, at current value, America's shocking defeat at the hands of South Vietnamese guerrillas and soldiers from what then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a 'little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam' could have led to lasting change. The U.S. might have grappled with the suffering it inflicted across Southeast Asia and pledged not to turn another region of the world into a charnel house and a munitions scrapyard. The people who led the U.S. to war and those who have assumed power since then could have absorbed how dangerous hubris can be; the inability of military might to achieve political aims; and the terrible costs of unleashing devastating firepower on a tiny nation. They could have grasped the merits of restrained foreign policy. For a very brief moment, Congress did attempt to require human rights concerns to factor into American foreign policy. That urge soon evaporated. Instead, America turned a blind eye to continued deaths in Vietnam and backed a genocidal regime in neighboring Cambodia to further injure the country with whom it had just made peace. Then the U.S. quickly doubled down, setting in motion a means to turn its humiliating defeat in Southeast Asia into a 20-year war in Southwest Asia, against even weaker opponents, that ended in another mortifying loss. A U.S. Marine stands with Vietnamese children as they watch their house burn 25 miles south of Da Nang, Vietnam after an Allied patrol set it ablaze after finding communist AK-47 ammunition, Jan. 13, 1971. Photo: HJ/AP 'We were taught that our armies were always invincible, and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam,' President Jimmy Carter observed in his famous 'malaise speech' on July 15, 1979, while paradoxically claiming that the 'outward strength of America' was unequaled. The United States was, he said, 'a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.' But even as he mouthed those words to the American people, Carter was setting in motion secret operations that sowed the seeds for a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the 9/11 attacks, and more than two decades of forever wars. America would trade one agony for another, making rash choices that would inflict pain on its own people and devastation across another entire region. On July 3, 1979, Carter authorized the CIA to provide covert aid to insurgents, the nascent mujahideen, fighting the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. 'On that day,' Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski recalled, 'I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid would lead to a Soviet military intervention.' When his prediction came true later that year, Brzezinski gloated: 'We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War.' Stoking war for the purpose of revenge by proxy had dire costs. For the Soviet Union, the conflict became a 'bleeding wound,' in the words of that country's leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Over nine years, the USSR lost 14,500 soldiers. The people of Afghanistan endured far worse, suffering an estimated 1 million civilian deaths. The Soviet withdrawal in 1989 paved the way for a brutal civil war followed by the Taliban takeover of the country. Mujahideen fighters of the Harakat-e Islami Party of Afghanistan stand beside the debris of an helicopter they shot down with a stinger missile in Maidan Province, Afghanistan, in late June 1987. Photo: AFP/Getty Images The covert conflict by America and its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also empowered Islamic extremists — including Osama bin Laden — and set the stage for the rise of his terror group, Al Qaeda. The Soviet Union quickly passed from existence, collapsing in 1991. Bin Laden soon turned his attention to American targets. In 2001, 19 Al Qaeda operatives with box cutters used airliners to kill almost 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. They were able to goad the world's sole superpower into eschewing a measured law enforcement response to the 9/11 attacks for a ruinous 'global war on terror.' The forever wars, which began in Afghanistan, spread to Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, Libya, the African Sahel, Syria, Yemen, and beyond. It took the United States until 2011 to finally kill bin Laden, but the conflict he ignited has raged on without him. The U.S. would suffer wheel-spinning stalemates across multiple war zones and another embarrassing defeat, this time in Afghanistan. But just as with Vietnam, other people suffered far worse than Americans. More than 905,000 people have died due to direct violence in the forever wars, according to Brown University's Costs of War Project. Around 3.8 million more have died indirectly from economic collapse, the destruction of medical and public health infrastructure, and other causes. As many as 60 million people have been displaced by the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines. All that death and suffering has been purchased by the U.S. government for a butcher's bill of about $8 trillion and climbing. A U.S. army soldier sets a mud hut on fire in a deserted village on the outskirts of Balad Ruz, Iraq, on Aug. 10, 2008. Photo: Marko Drobnjakovic/AP President Donald Trump, despite his 'peacemaker' rhetoric, has kept the forever wars burning with attacks in Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Trump has also been threatening war with Iran, a throwback to the first flush of the war on terror, when the popular quip among neoconservatives was: 'Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.' Such a conflict could result in tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths. If it spiraled into Israeli nuclear strikes on Iran, many millions could die. The Trump administration has even found a way to add more casualties to the toll of the Vietnam War. Trump's 90-day freeze on foreign aid ground U.S.-funded programs in Southeast Asia, including demining initiatives, to a halt. In February, an unexploded U.S. bomb in Laos killed two teenaged girls. That same day, two toddlers in Cambodia were killed by another piece of unexploded ordnance. Landmine victim Nguyen The Nghia displays his wounds from an unexploded munition blast he suffered when he was in the fifth grade in Quang Tri province, Vietnam on January 6, 2020. Photo: Nhac Nguyen/AFP/Getty Images Aid has since resumed, but it remains unclear for how long and in what amounts. What isn't in doubt is how much it is desperately needed. Millions of acres in Vietnam — almost one-fifth of the country — were still contaminated by U.S. munitions as of 2023. There might be as much as 800,000 tons of unexploded ordinance, or UXO, littering the nation. Experts say it could take a century or more to remediate Southeast Asia — and that was with full, uninterrupted U.S. assistance. 'In the long run, the abrupt withdrawal or decrease of U.S. support could permanently undermine UXO programs in the region if alternative funding and programs fail to fill the void. The landmines and UXO problem in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are one of the most persistent and complex in the world, requiring consistent funding and a multifaceted approach over many decades,' Sera Koulabdara, the chief executive of Legacies of War, a U.S.-based advocacy and educational group focused on demining, told The Intercept. 'Without this support, efforts to resolve the problem will be significantly hindered.' More than 15 years ago, I traveled around Vietnam meeting survivors of the long, lethal tail of the American war and covering the work of a local demining team. I spoke with parents whose children had been maimed and killed by American munitions and youngsters orphaned by decaying American ordnance, including a girl named Pham Thi Hoa. Pham's family suffered immensely from the American war. One set of great-grandparents were killed, in 1969, when their hamlet was bombed. That same year, a great-aunt and three of her children died the same way. Sometime after the war ended in 1975, Pham's other great-grandfather was killed by a landmine. A great-uncle died from an unexploded ordnance blast in 1996. And in 2007, Pham's father, mother, and 3-year-old brother were all killed by a 105 mm U.S. artillery shell. Pham made an indelible impression on me. I arrived in her village one afternoon expecting to interview a young woman of 18. When my car pulled up, an 8-year-old sprite of a girl with large brown eyes and a bright smile came bounding toward it. It tore my heart out. Somehow, I knew that I had been misinformed and that this was the survivor. I also knew there was no way I could ask this child what happened to her family. When she was out of earshot, her grandmother offered up a spare but gruesome account of bodies ripped in two and a toddler reduced to a basketful of viscera. America's conflicts keep killing people long after the guns fall silent. I haven't kept in touch with her, but Pham should be about 25 years old. There's a good chance she's married and may even have children of her own. They are going to grow up in a Vietnam contaminated by the deadly detritus of an American war that ended 50 years ago. Their children will too. Just how many generations of this family will live in such peril remains to be seen. The same can be said of people in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Syria, and beyond. Kids in Vang Vieng, Laos playing with a disarmed American bomb dropped during the Vietnam War on September 1, 1989. Photo: Gerhard Joren/LightRocket/Getty Images Wars aren't over when they're over. America's conflicts keep killing people long after the guns fall silent. Just how many more people die may depend, in part, on the Trump administration's decisions in the weeks and months ahead. 'No one knows how many years it would take to clear all the UXO in Southeast Asia. This will all depend on resources available. The most important thing we should prioritize is how many lives we can save from these explosive remnants of war,' said Koulabdara. 'We have seen the number of accidents decline and this is a direct result of funding the clearance efforts and explosive ordnance risk education. These are vital programs that we must preserve until Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are impact-free from the dangers of 50-year-old war trash.' Join The Conversation
