U.S. base expansion threatened Vicenza’s drinking water, green space, and cultural fabric

Evidence

Beyond feeling excluded from the decision-making process, many in Vicenza grew increasingly concerned as details about the base emerged. The new base was set to take over 135 acres at the Dal Molin airport and a large adjacent grassy field; many feared it would destroy one of Vicenza’s last areas of green space. Environmental scientists and engineers showed that the military’s plan to drive hundreds of pylons into the ground to support the buildings’ foundations risked puncturing the city’s aquifer and its main source of drinking water, in addition to causing other environmental damage. Many were afraid that the base would harm the internationally famous architectural and cultural fabric of the city while increasing traffic in an already congested town by bringing in thousands of new soldiers and family members. Given the critical role the 173rd brigade played in the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, people also worried that returning soldiers would bring the trauma of war back to Vicenza; many pointed to the case of a soldier who brutally raped a sex worker after returning from an Iraq deployment and successfully gained a reduction in his sentence because of the “prolonged psychological stress” he had experienced at war. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 906

Categorization

• XREF: The aquifer puncturing concern and war-trauma-spillover echo the reader’s broader theme of how bases externalize military costs onto host communities.