US Supreme Court to hear dispute over Air Force's open detonations at Guam beach

A burn pit is an area of a U.S. military base in which waste is disposed of by burning. Photo courtesy of USAF

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review a local group’s case against the U.S Air Force’s open-air disposal of expired munitions on a public beach.

The U.S. Air Force has petitioned the high court to reexamine the Ninth Circuit Court’s 2025 ruling, which held that the military branch’s open detonations at Tarague Beach violated the National Environmental Protection Act.

The case stemmed from a 2021 lawsuit filed by Prutehi Litekyan: Save Rititian, challenging the Air Force’s permit renewal application to detonate 35,000 lbs. of bombs and burn other hazardous waste munitions each year in the open air.

"Now that the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case, we will continue to defend Guam residents’ ability to protect their health, their land and their resources,"  said David Henkin, deputy managing attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental legal group representing Prutehi Litekyan.

In its petition for review, the Air Force argued that it couldn't be sued over an administrative process that had yet to be completed.

It said the appeals court erred in determining that the application constituted a "final agency action" subject to judicial review and the NEPA process.

The appeals court pointed out that the details of the Air Force’s “planned activities on Tarague Beach reflected the agency’s commitment to a particular location and method of waste munitions disposal and were the endpoint in its decision-making process.”

The Air Force, however, argued that the 2021 request for permit renewal “does not reflect the consummation of proceedings,” and as such, it was not ripe for judicial review.

The pending process was “not sufficient to impose direct and immediate legal consequences absent separate actions,” the Air Force said, noting that the permit renewal application was still subject to changes based on the Guam Environmental Protection Agency's recommendations.

"If left uncorrected, the [Ninth Circuit decision] threatens to burden the military, other agencies, and federal courts with premature, wasteful and duplicative proceedings that Congress never contemplated," the Air Force argued.

The Air Force also disputed the Ninth Circuit's opinion that the permitting process under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act does not substitute for environmental review mandated by NEPA.

“RCRA’s specific provisions for environmental review as part of the hazardous waste permitting process preclude the application to this context of NEPA’s more general environmental review requirements," the Air Force said.

RCRA review, the Air Force added, “ensures that agencies consider fully, with the assistance of meaningful public comment, environmental issues involved in the permitting of hazardous waste management facilities."

The Air Force was first issued a permit to conduct open burning and detonations at Andersen Air Force Base in 1982. While no open burning has occurred since 2002, open detonations took place on Tarague Beach.

In December 2022, Guam officially prohibited open burning and detonation on the island.

“For years, the Air Force has chosen to dispose of its munitions stockpile by exploding bombs on our clients’ ancestral lands and threatening most of Guam’s drinking water supply,” Henkin said in a statement.

“Federal law gives our clients a pathway to force the Air Force first to take a hard look at the consequences of that choice and consider less environmentally destructive ways to get the job done," he added.

Earthjustice said open-air disposal of munitions releases harmful substances and chemicals linked to cancer, neurological damage and groundwater contamination into the land, air and ocean.

Such risks could have been avoided had the Air Force explored alternative technologies and locations, including sites outside Guam, the group said.

“We continue to carry many scars of war and war games that remain in our landscape, our bodies, and in our hearts and minds,” said Monaeka Flores of Prutehi Guåhan.

“We deserve justice for the harms that we continue to endure through the military’s ongoing practice of open detonation of hazardous materials. This decision only slows the delivery of justice for our island," she added.

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