How Jon Mitchell uncovered the Okinawa military exposures

Jon Mitchell is a British journalist and author residing in Japan who has written extensively about Okinawa and the environmental issues created by the ongoing presence of the United States Armed Forces on the island.

Mitchell received the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's Freedom of the Press Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 for his reporting on human rights issues on Okinawa. And his book, "Poisoning the Pacific " won second place in the Society of Environmental Journalists' Rachel Carson Environment Book Awards.

Policy and lawmakers have cited Mitchell's work in official reports; his findings have also aided U.S. veterans in winning compensation for chemical exposure during their time stationed on Okinawa. Mitchell has overcome deliberate attempts from the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense to block his work, which was flagged and shamed by international press freedom groups.

In this "How I Did It," Mitchell discusses his reporting approach to his Okinawa military exposure investigations.

The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What sparked your interest in the Okinawa military exposures story?

In the autumn of 2010, I was on assignment for The Japan Times in the northern jungles of Okinawa. When I was talking to local villagers, they told me that the American military had sprayed Agent Orange in the nearby jungles during the Vietnam War. They were worried about ongoing contamination in the soil and the water. After hearing about their concerns, I attempted to get the American side of the story - so I tracked down military veterans who had been stationed on the island at the time. They confirmed the accounts of the villagers. The veterans themselves were sick with diseases they believed were due to exposure to these chemicals, notably cancers, and in some cases their children were sick, too.

In the following months, I wrote a series of English and Japanese newspaper stories about the issue. I traveled to America with a Okinawa TV crew and we made a documentary which picked up one of Japan's top TV awards, further spreading awareness of this issue. Ultimately, some U.S. veterans have received compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs due to what my investigations uncovered.

Since then, my investigations have spread beyond Agent Orange to other contaminants, notably PFAS Forever Chemicals, which are responsible for Okinawa's largest ever case of environmental damage.

What was your approach to gathering data and finding sources?

As an investigative journalist, I understand how important triangulation is. To uncover the extent of military contamination in Okinawa, I use a variety of sources, including interviews with American veterans, whistleblowers, and residents of Okinawa. Most importantly, I use the American Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). No journalists in Japan had ever used FOIA to investigate environmental contamination in the country. So, starting in 2014, I began to file what would become hundreds of FOIA requests to obtain information from the military about how the activities of their 31 facilities have been impacting Okinawa's environment. The documents I obtained chronicled decades of environmental damage, including contamination from depleted uranium, dioxin, asbestos and PCBs.

In 2016, I began to investigate the contamination of Okinawa's main source of drinking water, which is an aquifer that lies beneath Kadena Air Base, what the USAF calls its "Keystone of the Pacific." I used a combination of FOIA-released documents, open source American government data, archive aerial photographs, and environmental surveys conducted by the local government. By combining this data, I was able to pinpoint the source of environmental contamination to a former fire training area within Kadena Air Base.

How did you approach connecting the data to stories and people on the ground?

As a correspondent for one of the island's daily newspapers, OkinawaTimes, I am blessed with a very supportive crew of colleagues on the ground who have the trust of local residents. Thanks to this network, we have been able to produce groundbreaking investigations. Unlike in mainland Japan, the media in Okinawa has a strong tradition of watchdog journalism that attempts to hold both the Japanese and the American governments to account for their ongoing human rights violations in Okinawa Prefecture.

What sort of illnesses did you see the most among people who were exposed?

Since World War 2, when the Battle of Okinawa devastated the island's environment, civilians and American service members alike have been exposed to a litany of toxins. These are ingredients from munitions, negligent disposal practices, and the industrial-type operations from military installations, including the use of solvents, chrome plating, dry cleaning and refueling.

Many of the American veterans exposed on the island are suffering from cancers, diabetes, neurological disorders, and in some cases, their children have been impacted, too. Amongst the Okinawan population, researchers are tracking an increase in low-birth- weight babies that they have linked to exposure to PFAS. Citizens' groups have been conducting blood tests among residents living near the bases and they have discovered very high levels of forever chemicals in residents who consume the local tap water. Japanese medical professionals are compiling the data to ascertain the extent of the health impact of these exposures.

Okinawa used to be renowned for its residents' longevity - but today that has plummeted due to a series of factors which include a diet largely consisting of imported foods, a car-based lifestyle, and now medical experts are beginning to factor in decades of exposure to military contaminants.

What should health care reporters who are less familiar with military exposures and hazardous substance exposures know? What resources did you find the most useful?

Frequently, the military is very reluctant to release information related to environmental contamination created by its operations. You can see this reluctance time and time again, in Camp Lejeune, and in the Red Hill water contamination in Hawaii. Due to this reluctance, journalists have to become creative in how they obtain information. They need to befriend members of the military community, reach out to retired personnel, and especially they need to master the use of the American Freedom of Information Act. For me, learning how to use FOIA was a steep learning curve that required persistence and patience. But over the years, I have been able to obtain more than 10,000 pages of documents related to environmental contamination in Japan. I have donated the bulk of these documents to academic institutions in the United States and Okinawa. As journalists, we demand transparency from the authorities and, at the same time, we have to enable transparency of our own investigations so that the public can determine that our articles are accurate, especially when it comes to issues impacting human health.

What was it like to see the impact of your reporting?

As a result of my reporting, retired American service members have been able to obtain compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs, enabling them to pay for the health care that is so expensive in the United States. Also, following my own reporting and those of other journalists in Japan, the Japanese government introduced a drinking water advisory for PFAS which has helped to limit the exposures of people living near American military bases here.

Moreover, my reporting has opened the eyes of Americans and Okinawans about the problems caused by concentrating 31 military facilities in the tiny island of Okinawa. Americans have started to realize just how badly military operations have damaged Okinawa' environment. At the same time, Okinawans have come to realize that American service members have been exposed while serving in Japan. This has created a measure of solidarity between American military personnel and residents who now understand that they are both impacted by environmental contamination.

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