{"id":511,"date":"2026-10-07T20:07:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=511"},"modified":"2026-10-07T20:07:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:07:38","slug":"supreme-court-guam-air-force-beach-bomb-detonations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=511","title":{"rendered":"SUPREME COURT ASKED: CAN THE AIR FORCE KEEP BLOWING UP BOMBS ON A GUAM BEACH? | The Air Force has blasted old munitions on Tarague Beach since 1982, a local group says the range sits above the island\u2019s main aquifer and beside ancient sites \u2014 and one justice called the whole fight \u201codd\u201d as the bench asked if the lawsuit came too soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sun, sand, surf \u2014 and kaboom. The US Supreme Court on Wednesday heard Department of the Air Force v. Prutehi Gu\u00e5han<\/strong>, a case over whether the Air Force can keep using Tarague Beach<\/strong>, next to Andersen Air Force Base in northern Guam, to detonate unexploded ordnance, Al Jazeera<\/a> reports. The Air Force has used the beach for detonations since 1982<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The stakes are explosive by the pound: the dispute stems from a 2021 permit application seeking to detonate around 30,000 pounds<\/strong> and open-burn 5,000 pounds<\/strong> of waste munitions, including World War II-era weapons, Courthouse News<\/a> reports. Guam\u2019s EPA issued a preliminary decision that neither denied nor approved that renewal, and the detonations have continued, per SCOTUSblog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prutehi Gu\u00e5han \u2014 \u201cProtect Guam\u201d in Chamorro \u2014 says the range sits on ancestral land the military seized after World War II, next to culturally important fishing grounds, and above an aquifer that provides drinking water to over 80%<\/strong> of the island, Al Jazeera reports. The group wants the Air Force to do a full environmental review under NEPA; the government says the hazardous-waste law, RCRA, displaces that requirement and that the suit was filed too early.<\/p>\n

The bench was torn. \u201cThis is an odd case,\u201d said Justice Clarence Thomas, noting that it involves \u201ca regulated body asking permission to do something.\u201d Justice Sonia Sotomayor observed that Congress \u201cexplicitly does away with NEPA in a bunch of different ways \u2026 But they haven\u2019t done it in this context.\u201d Justice Elena Kagan warned of \u201ca gigantic contingency\u201d because Guam\u2019s EPA may not issue the permit the Air Force wants. Law.com<\/a> read the court as leaning toward the Air Force; Courthouse News said the justices seemed to question \u201cwhen, not if,\u201d review should happen.<\/p>\n

Outside, it was about more than sand. \u201cGuam is a colony of the United States,\u201d said Prutehi Gu\u00e5han executive director Monaeka Flores. \u201cWe do not have voting representation in Congress. We do not vote for the president.\u201d The island, home to about 170,000 people, has been a US territory since 1898.<\/p>\n

Until the justices rule, the Air Force keeps operating under its prior permit, as the group told the court (per SCOTUSblog) \u2014 which means the beach stays open. For bombs.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> Al Jazeera<\/a> \u00b7 Courthouse News Service<\/a> \u00b7 SCOTUSblog<\/a> \u00b7 Law.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Air Force has blasted old munitions on Tarague Beach since 1982, a local group says the range sits above the island\u2019s main aquifer and beside ancient sites \u2014 and one justice called the whole fight \u201codd\u201d as the bench asked if the lawsuit came too soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb-guam-beach-detonation-1007.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":513,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions\/513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}