What's killing Guamanians? The island is tainted with 25 types of toxic chemicals

 By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

The food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are tainted with toxic chemicals lurking in an idyllic facade. Measuring approximately 30 miles long and 4 to 11.5 miles wide, Guam is contaminated with 25 types of toxic chemicals detected at 39 military landfill sites in Yigo. While most of these landfills have long been closed, the legacy of their danger lingers.

Due to evaporation, rain, infiltration and wind dispersion of the toxic chemicals in the dumpsites for more than 50 years, the contamination has spread all over Guam, according to the long-forgotten report prepared in 2007 by former Guam epidemiologist Dr. Luis Szyfres.

Szyfres, former professor of natural sciences at the University of Guam, cited the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s findings that concentrations of toxic chemicals in Guam’s soil and groundwater exceeded the acceptable levels. They were detected in landfill sites which hosted deteriorated drums of chemicals, asphalt wastes, scrap metals, sanitary wastes, construction debris and solvents from the 1950s and 1960s.

Arsenic is among the toxic substances poisoning Guam. “The spring waters that discharged from the northern lens aquifer in Guam reported unusually high levels of arsenic,” reads the report. “There are more than 100 groundwater wells in this part of the island (North). Some of these wells are connected through conduits that flow out as springs or seeps along Tumon Bay.”

The toxic chemicals found on Guam, all of which were on the Superfund’s National Priorities List, include aluminum, barium, antimony, arsenic, cadmium, copper, chromium, lead, manganese, unspecified metals, nickel, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, selenium, silver, thallium, tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxins, total petroleum hydrocarbons, vanadium, volatile organic compounds, trichloroethylene, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes and semi-volatile organic compounds and zinc.

Szyfres theorized that the presence of toxic chemicals caused the abnormal rate of cancer prevalence on Guam. On average, one person is diagnosed with cancer every day in Guam, based on an age-adjusted rate for every 100,000 people, and one resident dies of cancer every 2.3 days, according to the University of Guam’s 2024 Cancer Registry.

Szyfres’ study found that the incidence and mortality rates of chronic diseases on Guam have epidemic proportions. Death rates are up to 2,000 percent higher on Guam than in the continental U.S.

The prevalence of certain types of cancer is far higher in Guam than in the mainland. These include nasopharyngeal cancer, which is 1,999 percent higher in Guam; cervical cancer, 65 percent higher; uterine cancer, 55 percent higher; liver cancer, 41 percent; diabetes, 150 percent; Ischemic heart disease, 15 percent; and kidney failure, 12 percent.

“It is a basic epidemiological concept that diseases in general, and the excess

in the number of cases documented in Guam may be due to host factors such as genetic makeup, nutrition, immunological status of the population and environmental factors such as contamination of the environment of a given population with physical, chemical, or biological agents,” the report states.

A combination of host and environmental factors, “is the only viable scientific explanation for so many people with so many diseases of very different natures."

Other diseases prevalent on Guam, besides neurodegenerative conditions unique to the island, include diabetes, disorders affecting the kidneys, skeletal system, heart and arteries, glands and hormones and the respiratory system.

Superfund site

Andersen Air Force Base has been an active Superfund site since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed it on the National Priorities List in October 1992.

The 20,000-acre military installation is being cleaned up for hazardous substances associated with base operations, such as trichloroethane and paint thinners; dry cleaning fluids and laundry products; fuels such as JP-4 and gasoline; pesticides; antifreeze; aircraft-cleaning compounds; polychlorinated biphenyls; metals; and military munitions.

According to the EPA, these substances were found in unlined landfills, drum storage and disposal areas, chemical storage areas, fire training areas, waste storage areas, laundry facilities and industrial and flight line operations.

Andersen is located in a karst limestone terrain, near the Northern Guam lens aquifer supplies drinking water to at least 70 percent of the island residents, including the military.

The EPA said the decontamination efforts at Andersen have reduced immediate threats to the health and safety of the nearby population. Areas with contaminated soil have either been cleaned up or closed off to public access. 

Agent Orange

After decades of U.S. military denial, the U.S. government finally acknowledged that Agent Orange was used and stored on Guam during the Vietnam War era.

In August 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics, or PACT Act, which expands services and benefits to U.S. veterans in the Pacific who suffered herbicide exposure.

Guam's inclusion in the PACT Act was the culmination of the Agent Orange survivors' long battle for recognition of their claims, applying tactical herbicide to control vegetation at various locations around the island, specifically in Marbo, Harmon and Northwest Field, between 1958 and 1980.

Veterans who were deployed to Guam during this period were afflicted with conditions, including Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft-tissue sarcoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and chloracne, believed caused by their exposure to Agent Orange.

Radiation fallout

In 2005, the National Research Council released a report declaring Guam’s eligibility for compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments program.  “Guam did receive measurable fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific between 1946 and 1958,” read the council’s report, which recommended that people living on island during that period be compensated under RECA “in a way similar to that of persons considered to be downwinders.”

The report established a correlation between nuclear testing and high incidences of cancer in Guam, which is the second leading cause of death on island.

About 67 nuclear devices were detonated by the Atomic Energy Commission in or around the Marshalls between 1946 and 1962. “The radiation emanating from these explosions severely affected those who lived in the Marshall Islands, resulting in everything from cancers to birth deformities,” the report said. “However, the radioactive fallout didn't stop there; it extended downwind over 1,000 miles away to Guam.”

PCB in Cocos Lagoon

The rate of cancer-related deaths among residents of Malesso, also known as Merizo, proportionally increased more than 10 years after the release of polychlorinated biphenyl contamination of Cocos Lagoon, the village’s fishing grounds.

“This increased rate continued for approximately 20 years, after which it returned to near island-wide Guam levels,” Guam’s epidemiologist, Dr. Robert Haddock, writes in his cancer mortality study published in November 2011 in the Hawaii Medical Journal.

The study analyzed deaths recorded by the Guam Cancer Registry from 2000 to 2007 and original death certificates from 1968 to 1999.

“While the number of new cancer cases recorded in the village of Merizo was insufficient in number to draw a statistically significant conclusion when single-year incidence rates were compared to the rest of the island, a proportional mortality study showed a distinct increase for the village of Merizo compared to other villages for the period 1978-1997,” the study said.

The subsequent decrease in PCB levels corresponded to a decrease in cancer deaths, suggesting that these trends may be related, the study showed.

Asbestos in Tiyan

  Asbestos-containing materials have been detected in abandoned military structures along Sunset Boulevard in Tiyan.

 Asbestos, which is known to cause cancer, is found in older buildings, particularly in materials such as tile adhesives and drop-ceiling components. Former Navy facilities in the Tiyan area are known to contain these materials.

The Guam Environmental Protection Agency oversees asbestos-containing materials. Regulations exist for the proper abatement, removal and disposal of asbestos-containing materials, including proposals for specific, secure landfills for such materials.

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