FROM THE US DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – State Board of Veterans Affairs (SBVA) Vice-Chair Scott Gedling launched an announcement Friday applauding the Alabama State Legislature for passing HJR 131. The decision helps establishing a well being registry for Fort McClellan Veterans who skilled poisonous publicity.
The decision was drafted by Rep. Kenneth Paschal and sponsored by Rep. Barbara Boyd. The decision handed with bipartisan help and has been enacted as Alabama Act 2022-250.
“I would really like very a lot to thank our State Legislators for his or her present of overwhelming help in passing the decision for a well being care registry for Fort McClellan. It was a real signal of help to all Veterans and only one extra instance of the care and compassion our Legislators have for Veterans,” mentioned Mr. Gedling, a retired U.S. Military Colonel. “The Fort McClellan well being registry was within the latest federal ‘Honoring our PACT’ invoice that handed the U.S. Home of Representatives and is now within the Senate. This decision goes a good distance in telling our federal Representatives and Senators how vital it’s that we don’t neglect concerning the many Veterans who served and had been stationed on Fort McClellan. The well being registry additionally goes a good distance in serving to to figuring out any related well being dangers and circumstances which will have been related to their time there on the set up.”
The Alabama State Legislature’s decision was prompted by the same decision handed by the SBVA in October 2021, which also urged the establishment of a health registry and presumptive service connection for Veterans who served on Fort McClellan.
Fort McClellan has a well-documented historical past with poisonous publicity that doubtlessly dates way back to post-World Struggle II. A 1998 report of a U.S. Military Environmental Middle examine famous the presence of harmful contaminates. The report said that an investigation and cleanup could be wanted previous to transferring Fort McClellan’s property to the general public area. In 2005, the Nationwide Academy of Medication acknowledged that each the groundwater and soil had been contaminated.
Regardless of these findings, the U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs doesn’t acknowledge any opposed well being circumstances related to service on Fort McClellan. Army and Veterans who served on Fort McClellan had been additionally excluded from a class-action settlement between the Metropolis of Anniston and Monsanto Chemical Plant in 2003.
