Naval Security Group Activity Sabana Seca

Base Background

Naval Security Group Activity (NSGA) Sabana Seca was a U.S. Navy communications and signals-intelligence installation in the Sabana Seca barrio of Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, about 11 miles west of San Juan. The Navy established the roughly 2,200-acre station in 1952 on land it had used since 1949 for an earlier ammunition depot, dividing the property into a North Tract that held the communications mission and family housing, and a South Tract used for base support functions. NSGA Sabana Seca operated a high-frequency direction-finding facility and served as a fleet communications center until technological changes made the mission obsolete, and the Navy closed the base on January 31, 2003.

Toxic Exposure at Naval Security Group Activity Sabana Seca

The EPA placed Naval Security Group Activity Sabana Seca on the Superfund program’s National Priorities List in October 1989 after investigations tied to the base’s South Tract found contaminated soil and groundwater. The contamination traced to two sources: routine waste disposal by the Navy’s Public Works Department and decades of pesticide handling at an on-base pest control shop, located next to a family housing area and a playground. Rain could wash contaminated soil through a drainage ditch toward a nearby marsh, and the fractured limestone bedrock beneath the site gave contaminants a path into groundwater. The Navy and EPA completed cleanup in 1997, and EPA removed the site from the National Priorities List in October 1998.

EPA’s investigation covered five source areas across the base in total. Alongside the pest control shop, the Navy and EPA also tested two general waste disposal areas (South Stone Road and North Stone Road), a disposal area near an ammunition bunker, and a former pistol range. Testing there turned up various metals and pesticides at low concentrations, but EPA and the Navy concluded none of the four posed an unacceptable risk to health or the environment, so no cleanup was ordered at any of them.

Pesticides and Herbicides

The pest control shop operated on the South Tract from the 1950s through 1979. Workers there spilled pesticides around the building and mixed pesticides and cleaned application equipment in a sink that drained directly onto the ground outside.

A veteran introduced as evidence a letter dated March 15, 2011 in which the EPA confirmed that the pesticides and herbicides used or stored at Sabana Seca included DDT, lindane, chlordane, Paris green, 2,4-D, malathion, diazinon, Sevin (carbaryl), pramitol, and Esteron, a mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, the same two active ingredients used to make Agent Orange. Soil and sediment samples confirmed gamma-chlordane as a contaminant at the former pest control shop site.

Because Sabana Seca isn’t on the VA’s list of confirmed herbicide test and storage locations, a disability claim tied to Esteron or the site’s other pesticides can’t rely on a presumptive service connection. It has to be built the same way any other toxic exposure claim from this base is: with medical records and evidence tying a specific diagnosis to the time spent there.

Heavy Metal Contamination

Soil samples collected on the South Tract in 1984 showed elevated levels of arsenic and lead alongside the chlordane found in the same testing. EPA’s investigation linked the metals to the same decades of waste handling and pesticide use documented above rather than to a separate source.

Getting Compensation

Sailors, Marines, and civilian workers who spent time on the South Tract before the 1997 cleanup could have handled or come into contact with these chemicals without any warning at the time, and illnesses linked to pesticide and heavy metal exposure often take years or decades to surface as a diagnosed condition.

Take a look at the chart below to see what conditions this kind of exposure is known to cause. Whether you served at Sabana Seca or are the surviving family of someone who did, Hill & Ponton’s VA-accredited lawyers can evaluate a toxic exposure claim at no cost, and we only get paid if you do. Start with a free evaluation today.