Issue and Opponent: The US Army used to manufacture biological and chemical weapons in Fredrick, Maryland. However, when President Nixon outlawed biological weapons, the Army dumped them into unlined pits on Fort Detrick. In 1997, the Army found levels of PCE nearly four thousand times higher than EPA limits in the groundwater. This contamination is thought to be the direct cause of Fredrick, Maryland, having one of the highest cancer rates in the country. A local foundation, the Kristen Renee Foundation, was created after the late Kristen Renee White Hernandez died in 2008 of a brain tumor. Kristen’s family suspects that the environmental contamination caused her cancer and suffering near Fort Detrick. To date, there have been 118 cases of cancer on the road that runs along the edge of a primary dumping area. On Ft. Detrick, it has been reported that people only drink bottled water. In some cases, the Army has even distributed bottles of water to some surrounding communities.
Dilemma Action: To raise awareness about the contamination of the city’s water supply and cancer clusters surrounding Ft. Detrick, The Kristen Renee Foundation joined the Yes Men. Together on October 30th, they created a “ghost march” of the community members that had died because of the Ft. Detrick contamination. Participators dressed in white sheets to appear as ghosts to let others know who and what killed previous community members. The “ghosts” arrived at the military base and even “haunted” the downtown area for a while. The Army was put into a dilemma as if it acknowledged the “ghost march” drew more attention to an issue they’ve spent millions of dollars trying to fix since 2000. Additionally, if the Army remained silent on the action, the Kristen Renee Foundation’s claim that the Army was ignoring the issue would only gain further support.
Outcomes: The action gained a good amount of media attention, and due to its creativity, it was also able to gain the media’s sympathy in reporting. The Army directly denied the lawsuit against it where more than 100 claims were seeking millions of dollars in compensation for cancer deaths allegedly caused by the environmental contamination in Ft. Detrick. Though the Kristen Renee Foundation gathered nearly 14,000 signatures on their petition to ask Maryland’s senators to take another look at the possible cancer cluster near Ft. Detrick, a US district court judge dismissed the lawsuit.