Vicenza base construction risked puncturing the city’s drinking-water aquifer

Evidence

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: Supports the book’s ongoing argument that bases impose concrete environmental and social costs on host cities. — connects to: A hidden tannery report confirmed groundwater flowed toward the city wells — Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, 2901
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 906

Broader Connections

• A hidden tannery report confirmed groundwater flowed toward the city wells #corroborates (0.85) — Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, 2901