section_path: Legal career/Military and Vieques
section_name: Military and Vieques
paragraph_text: Military and Vieques
  
  Kennedy has been a critic of environmental damage by the U.S. military.
  
  In a 2001 article, Kennedy described how he sued the U.S. Navy on behalf of fishermen and residents of Vieques, an island of Puerto Rico, to stop weapons testing, bombing, and other military exercises. Kennedy argued that the activities were unnecessary, and that the Navy had illegally destroyed several endangered species, polluted the island's waters, harmed the residents' health, and damaged its economy. He was arrested for trespassing at Camp Garcia Vieques, the U.S. Navy training facility, where he and others were protesting the use of a section of the island for training. Kennedy served 30 days in a maximum security prison in Puerto Rico.
  
  The trespassing incident forced the suspension of live-fire exercises for almost three hours. The lawsuits and protests by Kennedy, and hundreds of Puerto Ricans who were also imprisoned, eventually forced the termination of naval bombing in Vieques by the Bush administration.
  
  In a 2003 article for the Chicago Tribune, Kennedy called the U.S. federal government "America's biggest polluter" and the U.S. Department of Defense the worst offender. Citing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he wrote, "unexploded ordnance waste can be found on 16,000 military ranges... and more than half may contain biological or chemical weapons."
  
  Kennedy has been a critic of environmental damage by the U.S. military.
  
  In a 2001 article, Kennedy described how he sued the U.S. Navy on behalf of fishermen and residents of Vieques, an island of Puerto Rico, to stop weapons testing, bombing, and other military exercises. Kennedy argued that the activities were unnecessary, and that the Navy had illegally destroyed several endangered species, polluted the island's waters, harmed the residents' health, and damaged its economy. He was arrested for trespassing at Camp Garcia Vieques, the U.S. Navy training facility, where he and others were protesting the use of a section of the island for training. Kennedy served 30 days in a maximum security prison in Puerto Rico.
  
  The trespassing incident forced the suspension of live-fire exercises for almost three hours. The lawsuits and protests by Kennedy, and hundreds of Puerto Ricans who were also imprisoned, eventually forced the termination of naval bombing in Vieques by the Bush administration.
  
  In a 2003 article for the Chicago Tribune, Kennedy called the U.S. federal government "America's biggest polluter" and the U.S. Department of Defense the worst offender. Citing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), he wrote, "unexploded ordnance waste can be found on 16,000 military ranges... and more than half may contain biological or chemical weapons."