LANDOVICA, Yugoslavia -- The boy wiggles through thick brambles and slides into the bomb crater. He comes often to this spot - a wooded hollow among rolling hills of vineyards - to explore the crumbled bunker or hunt for pieces of the Yugoslav tanks blasted in the NATO bombardment.

Nexhat Gashi has never heard of depleted-uranium ammunition. He shrugs when asked about radioactivity. He has no clue his special hideout is part of a global uproar about possible health risks from the armor-busting shells used by U.S. forces during the 1999 airstrikes.

But the 14-year-old is certain about one thing. "The whole environment of Kosovo is sick," he says while poking around the bomb site about 35 miles southwest of Pristina, the provincial capital. "Why isn't anyone trying to fix that first?"

The question rings loudly across Kosovo.

Worries about possible links between illnesses and depleted uranium have sent a chill through the highest political and military levels of NATO nations. But many ethnic Albanians wonder why obvious ecological calamities in Kosovo - with clear health consequences - aren't getting the same attention.

It doesn't take a Geiger counter to measure Kosovo's ecological crisis. Winds carry lead dust. Untreated sewage spills onto village streets. Toxic metals leak from neglected factories. Raw waste pours into rivers, leaving some stretches totally lifeless.

Such scenes are not uncommon in the Balkans, but Kosovo suffers particularly. The Yugoslav government made few ecology-minded investments in its province after the majority ethnic Albanians began setting up their own rival administration more than a decade ago. The 78-day NATO attack added to the problems by striking at industrial targets.

"It's a catastrophe," said Bejtullah Bejtullahu, an environmental activist in Kosovska Mitrovica, considered one of the most polluted areas in Kosovo.

Lead levels in the city's air and water have reached up to 200 times World Health Organization guidelines. NATO peacekeepers closed the giant Zvecan lead smelter in August, but lead residue is still carried by the breeze and works its way down to the water table and into the food chain.

French soldiers in the city are routinely tested for lead levels and those with elevated readings are moved out and advised against conceiving a baby for several months, U.N. officials said.

Another part of the idle industrial complex - which produced fertilizers, batteries and high-quality zinc - leaks dangerous substances such as cadmium, arsenic, nickel and sulfuric acid. A tank containing nearly 160,000gallons of sulfuric acid ruptured in September, leaking its contents into the Sitnica River and killing tens of thousands of fish.

Near the Macedonian border, a cement plant churns out a fine white dust that sometimes comes down like snow flurries. Respiratory problems and tuberculosis are common. An adjacent facility making asbestos products, a known carcinogen, was only recently closed.

Makeshift landfills and random dumping dot Kosovo, allowing tainted runoff to reach rivers and water supplies.

More than 75 percent of rural homes draw water from unprotected, shallow wells, the World Health Organization says. High levels of fecal contamination have led to a sharp rise in diseases such as hepatitis A.

With no real environmental enforcement, there are abuses. An old fuel storage tank leaked directly into a bog in the southwestern village of Suva Reka. A pile of dozens of old car batteries was tossed into a roadside ditch near the western city of Pec.

Outside Pristina, coal-burning power plants have left a mountain of black ash visible for miles. Strong winds can push the grains into Kosovo's largest city, mixing with exhaust from the many diesel generators and cars with few pollution controls.

"We call it the Pristina cough," said Daut Maloku, head of the environmentalist Green Party of Kosovo.

"We are living in a toxic place," he added. "There are so many things here to make you ill: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. Why are we so worried about only depleted uranium when we have so many more pressing problems?"

Yet each day brings more resources devoted to the uranium question.

WHO plans to assign a special investigation team and help coordinate a voluntary testing program for citizens. NATO forces have started placing warning signs at 112 known areas hit by uranium shells, which can punch through thick armor at supersonic speed and ignite in a deadly fireball.

Experts note there haven't been any in-depth studies of depleted uranium.

"A lump of (depleted uranium) sitting on the ground is not especially a problem. The big worry is if any of this material is ingested," said Dave Phillips, an environmental toxin specialist at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. "There is just so much we don't know."

Along the swatch of southwestern Kosovo where most of the 31,000 depleted uranium rounds fell, doctors have not reported any spike in cancer cases or other possible radiation-linked cases.

"It's fine to look closely at this, but I think they should look at the whole picture. Kosovo is an environmental tragedy," said Dr. Bashkim Meqa, director of the Isa Grezda Hospital in Djakovica.

"If we don't have clean water and clean air, what is the point in worrying about something that may or may not make you sick?"

But the environment is a low priority for U.N. overseers struggling with huge security and administrative matters. Just $1 million of the U.N.'s $250 million Kosovo budget is marked for environmental projects. More money may be sought from donor nations at a February conference in Brussels, Belgium.

"It's similar to any developing country where you have to pace the various issues to improve incrementally," said Gerald Fischer, one of the top U.N. civil administrators. "I think the emphasis is on incremental."

IN THE NEWS

Jan. 16: A Swiss laboratory announces it found traces of a uranium
isotope that suggest radioactive contamination in American-made munitions
that were collected on the battlefields of Kosovo.

Jan. 12: Scientists studying the health risks of depleted uranium for the German government recommend Kosovo be cleaned of traces of the metal left by NATO weapons.

Daut Maloku
head of the environmentalist Green Party of Kosovo