Futenma air station’s urban encroachment endangers thousands of residents.
Evidence
At Okinawa International University, just a few hundred yards from the airfield, our tour group witnessed students and faculty forced to close the windows in an extremely hot and humid, un-air-conditioned building because they couldn’t hear one another talking above the helicopter noise. Even more seriously, there are no safety “clear zones” beyond Futenma’s runways, as the law requires at U.S. military and civilian airfields. Airports worldwide are often situated in urban areas, but Futenma is so surrounded by Ginowan that it looks as if someone dug a 1,188-acre hole in the middle of the city. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 851
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Connects to Chapter on environmental and health impacts of bases from earlier in the book.