SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A mysterious cloud drifted across Puerto Rico overnight, prompting a senator to ask the U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday if it was military chaff used in Navy war games at the Vieques bombing range.
Clouds of chaff, tiny strips of silica glass, are released by pilots to hide their aircraft from radar.
"I want to know if the cloud was chaff, and if it was, what amount was emitted and what type of chaff it was," Sen. Roberto Prats of Puerto Rico's Popular Democratic Party said.
Prats cited a 1998 General Accounting Office report undertaken on behalf of another Puerto Rican senator, which called for an investigation into whether chaff could be inhaled and whether it posed a health risk.
Modesto Vazquez, a National Weather Service meteorologist in San Juan, spotted the cloud Tuesday afternoon off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico where the Navy carries out its war games on Vieques. It hit the southeast coast of Puerto Rico and moved over the island in a northwest direction, behaving as if it was chaff, he said.
"Satellite pictures were indicating it was clear conditions over the waters, but the radar was picking up what looked like showers or scattered showers," he said.
"We can't tell for sure for if it is chaff but it behaved that way. We have a lot of experience looking at chaff because of the Navy exercises," Vazquez said.
Navy spokesman Bob Nelson said: "We do use chaff regularly in exercises and have been doing so for a long time." But he could not immediately confirm if it was used on Tuesday.
In a drill that began on Monday, the Navy planned to drop 1,500 unarmed bombs from aircraft assigned to the Theodore Roosevelt battle group of 11 ships and 10,000 sailors.
Puerto Rican politicians and activists blame the bombing for illnesses and environmental damage in the U.S. territory of 4 million. They have tried unsuccessfully through lawsuits and civil disobedience to halt the bombing on Vieques, which the Navy has used for training for 60 years.
President Bush said last week the Navy would stop using Vieques for war games in May 2003, but the protesters want the bombing halted immediately.
Asked if the chaff posed a health risk, Nelson said "there are two sides to that story". He said some reports indicated it was harmless and others called for more study.
Nelson said Navy training on the Vieques firing range was disrupted on Wednesday by two protesters. Bombing runs set to begin at 2 p.m. were suspended while security officers removed the trespassers.
The Navy arrested nine other protesters, bringing the arrest total to 39 since the exercises began on Monday.
U.S. District Chief Judge Hector Laffitte sentenced one protest leader, Alberto "Tito Kayak" De Jesus, to one year in prison for repeated trespassing on Navy property.
De Jesus was arrested on June 1 and June 26, 2000, for trespassing on the bombing range and placed on one-year probation. He violated the terms of his probation by hanging a "Peace for Vieques" banner from the top of the Statue of Liberty in November.
"The court has been extremely lenient with this defendant yet he has shown no respect for the law. This violation must be taken seriously," Laffitte said.
Asked if he had anything to say, De Jesus held up a ripped T-shirt that read "Vieques or Death."
