US Supreme Court hears challenge to air force UXO detonations in Guam

What the report says

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing a challenge to the US Air Force’s use of Tarague Beach in Guam for detonating unexploded ordnance, a case brought by the Guam conservation group Prutehi Guahan. The dispute centers on whether the military properly followed environmental rules when it sought a new permit in 2021 to keep disposing of hazardous munitions at the site, which has been used for detonations since 1982.

According to Al Jazeera, the group says the practice could harm Guam’s ecosystem, water supply and culturally important land. In court filings, it argues the area sits on ancestral land, near traditional fishing and medicine-collecting sites, and above an aquifer that supplies much of the island’s drinking water. The case also raises the question of whether the Air Force needed a fuller environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act, including public input, rather than relying only on hazardous-waste procedures.

The Air Force has argued that it complied with the applicable hazardous-waste law and that the separate environmental-review requirement does not apply in the way the group claims. It also says the lawsuit came too early because Guam’s environmental agency had not issued a final decision on the permit. A lower court dismissed the case, but the Ninth Circuit allowed it to proceed, sending it to the Supreme Court.

Beyond the permit dispute, the case has drawn attention because it highlights the limited political representation of US territories such as Guam, which has been a US territory since 1898 and hosts major American military facilities in the Pacific.