“A series of civil lawsuits against defense contractors KBR and its former parent company Halliburton claims the companies endangered the health of U.S. troops and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by unsafely burning massive amounts of garbage on U.S. bases.

The lawsuits are the first coordinated effort by plaintiffs to extract damages for the claimed health effects from the burn pits. The military has acknowledged the concerns but said its own test of the most notorious case, the Balad Air Force Base burn pit [photos], found there is no prolonged health risk for those who were exposed for a year or less to the fumes.

But the military’s report on the fumes also acknowledged it cannot account for all the items burned in the Balad pit. At one point the open pit burned everything from plastics and food to medical waste, with jet fuel used as an accelerant at times.

The lawsuits, filed Tuesday in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New York and North Carolina, seek damages “in an amount sufficient to strip defendants of all of the revenue and profits” earned. KBR and Halliburton were paid millions of dollars to oversee the waste management for the military.”

[Read more at CNN.com]