Lajes Air Base: lead in skeletons reinforces suspicions of contamination

A new scientific study has uncovered significantly elevated levels of lead and other heavy metals in the skeletons of former residents living near Lajes Air Base in the Azores – providing the strongest evidence yet that toxic pollutants identified around the military installation entered the local population which has become (in)famous for its number of cancers.

The findings, reported by Expresso, come from a doctoral research project at the University of Coimbra that compared the skeletal remains of residents from Praia da Vitória, on Terceira Island, with those from nearby Angra do Heroísmo.

Researchers found markedly higher concentrations of several heavy metals—including lead, cadmium, chromium and molybdenum—in people who had lived close to areas contaminated by decades of fuel spills associated with United States military operations at the strategically important NATO base.

While the research does not establish that this pollution caused cancers that have been identified in residents living close to the base, scientists say it provides a critical missing link by demonstrating that contaminants previously identified in soil and groundwater accumulated in the bodies of people.

The study forms part of the doctoral thesis of forensic anthropologist Félix Rodrigues, a native of Terceira, and is due to be defended later this year.

It builds on previous environmental investigations that documented contamination around the base – linking it to the cluster of cancers – without being able to demonstrate the presence of the same toxic elements in human remains.

Heavy metals found in human remains

According to Expresso, Rodrigues’ study results showed “significantly higher concentrations of ten metals” in the Praia da Vitória group. Cadmium, chromium and molybdenum were identified as the most significant contaminants and are considered consistent with environmental exposure because all are known pollutants in the soils and aquifers surrounding the base.

The findings were partly published in a peer-reviewed article in Springer Nature earlier this year.

Lead emerged as another significant finding once researchers expanded their sample from 64 to 97 skeletons.

Rodrigues told Expresso that lead concentrations ranged between four and 67 parts per million, with average levels measuring around 18 parts per million in Praia da Vitória compared with 12 parts per million in Angra do Heroísmo.

Although he described the findings as provisional – because there are few comparable studies internationally – he noted that the scientific literature documenting the harmful health effects of prolonged heavy-metal exposure is extensive.

Calls for a cancer study

Rather than claiming to have solved the long-running controversy surrounding illnesses reported in the community, Rodrigues argues that the research demonstrates the urgent need for a large-scale epidemiological investigation.

“It is a new piece of evidence, but there are no certainties,” he told Expresso. “These are results that point to the need to continue following this path.”

He believes researchers should now examine living residents to determine whether they also carry elevated concentrations of heavy metals and whether those findings correspond with higher rates of cancer and other diseases in communities surrounding the base.

“If the presence of heavy metals comes from contamination, that is a profound discussion that has to take place over the long term,” he said. “The deceased can provide some information, but they do not speak. Living people do.”

Long-standing concerns over cancer

For decades, residents of Praia da Vitória have voiced concerns that cancer rates appear unusually high in neighbourhoods closest to the base.

Expresso reports that the new findings revive questions first raised eight years ago, when the newspaper revealed previously undisclosed Portuguese and US reports documenting widespread contamination of groundwater and soil by hydrocarbons and heavy metals linked to military activity.

The latest research is regarded as potentially significant because it identifies the same toxic substances in human remains, providing a biological connection that had previously been missing.

The newspaper reports that some legal and scientific observers believe any future demonstration of a direct cause-and-effect relationship between contamination and cancer could expose either the Portuguese or US governments to compensation claims from hundreds of affected families.

Nurses say research was blocked

The Expresso investigation also includes claims from healthcare professionals that earlier attempts to investigate cancer incidence in Praia da Vitória were abandoned before completion.

Nurse Alexandra Terra said she began researching cancer prevalence while studying at university after observing what appeared to be an unusually high number of cancer cases among residents in the Juncal area, located between the entrance to the Lajes base and the South Tank Farm fuel storage facilities.

“House after house, there were people with cancer,” she told the newspaper, describing the situation as “a major public health problem.”

According to Terra, the project was ultimately redirected to study early retirement among former Lajes workers rather than cancer incidence.

Former academic Norberto Messias, who supervised the original research, alleged that access to crucial information—including death certificates and disability records linked to cancer patients—was denied, making it impossible to complete the investigation. He claimed institutional relationships with American partners contributed to the decision, although no independent evidence supporting that allegation has been presented, Expresso stresses.

Government backing despite controversy

Despite claims by some local residents that concerns have been overlooked for years, the current research is being funded by the Azores Regional Government.

Regional Vice-President Artur Lima has previously warned that environmental conditions linked to historic US military contamination had “deteriorated considerably” and called for significant progress in addressing the issue.

The newspaper also reports anecdotal accounts from current and retired employees of the base who describe numerous colleagues developing cancer after retirement. However, both workers and researchers emphasise that these observations remain anecdotal, and cannot be interpreted as ‘proof of causation’.

For now, the University of Coimbra study stops well short of proving that contamination around Lajes Air Base caused cancer. But by demonstrating that toxic metals previously identified in contaminated soils are also present in the remains of people who lived nearby, the research represents a significant scientific milestone—and is likely to intensify calls for the comprehensive public health investigation that local residents, healthcare professionals and environmental campaigners have sought for years.

There have even been occasions where Azorean authorities have called for decontamination of the site, but this ran into the ‘next hurdle’ of ‘who was going to pay for it’: the Azorean government of the day clearly thinking the onus lay with the United States.

Source; Expresso