Governor cites study in effort to get Clinton to halt
 shelling
 

 BY JOHN McPHAUL
 Special to The Herald

 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Gov. Sila María Calderón on Monday revealed the
 results of a study that found heart damage among residents of Vieques due to the
 U.S. Navy's bombardment of the tiny island.

 According to the study, the damage is caused by sonic booms from ship-to-shore
 shelling that lands on the island's target range.

 Calderón announced the results of the study by researchers at the School of
 Medicine in Ponce in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to pressure President
 Clinton to order an end to the bombing before he leaves office at noon Saturday.

 If Clinton does not order an end to the bombing, all three Puerto Rican political
 parties will present a bill to the Puerto Rican legislature that would effectively
 prohibit the bombing, setting up a political and legal confrontation with the federal
 government.

 ``This is a moral and human rights matter that has to be resolved as soon as
 possible,'' Calderón said.

 A letter to Clinton signed by Calderón and the president of the New Progressive
 Party, Sen. Norma Burgos, and Puerto Rico Independence Party President
 Rubén Berríos said the study ``confirmed our worst fears, the people of Vieques
 are suffering and their health and security is at risk.''

 Calderón denied that the legislation would amount to a repudiation of an
 agreement between former Gov. Pedro Rosselló and Clinton that guarantees the
 Navy 90 days per year of training with nonexplosive ordnance.

 ``I wouldn't characterize it that way,'' she said, but declined to elaborate.

 The agreement put an end to live-fire training until a referendum on the tiny island
 is held Nov. 7.

 That would give the Vieques residents the choice of renewed live-fire training or a
 permanent end to inert-bomb training in May of 2003.

 Calderón said the study shows that some Vieques residents are suffering from
 ``vibro-acoustic disease,'' an ailment with a variety of symptoms, including the
 changes in cardiovascular morphology, among subjects exposed to low-frequency
 noise.

 Saying he had not yet read it, Navy spokesman Lt. Jeff Gordon said the study
 sounded like part of what he called ``a misinformation campaign against the Navy
 presence in Vieques.''

 ``We have seen a barrage of apparently politically motivated, intellectually
 dishonest or flatly wrong anti-Navy studies over the last two years, [and] none
 have survived scientific peer reviews or held up in court,'' Gordon said.

 Gordon said noise levels at population areas on the island of 9,000 residents fall
 within federal standards.

 For the study, researchers took ecocardiograms of 42 adults and eight children --
 fishermen and their family members -- finding that 49 of the 50 subjects suffered
 enlargement of the pericardium, the outer lining of the heart, while 39 suffered
 other cardiovascular anomalies.

 A control group of fishermen and their families showed a dramatically lower
 incidence of the heart anomalies.