Questions grow over US dumping

By Lee Tae-hoon

In May, Steve House and two other U.S. veterans said they buried toxic chemicals at a U.S. logistics base in Korea in 1978, prompting a joint investigation of the military camp.

Two months after House broke his silence about having buried Agent Orange in Camp Carroll, he visited the installation only to find that the joint investigation team picked the wrong area for their “exhaustive probe.”

“It was more gradual,” he said Wednesday as he inspected the area where a team of environmental experts from Korea and the United States focused their investigation. “The slope was more gradual.”

Kim Sun-dong, a lawmaker of the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party, expressed strong distrust of the joint probe, during which no signs of metallic objects or Agent Orange were found at the installation.

“Their investigation excluded the area House pointed out,” he said. “Further investigation must be carried out.”

Over the past two months, the 8th U.S. Army which oversees the joint investigation has maintained that their primary objectives have been answering the questions, “Was Agent Orange buried on Camp Carroll? And what happened to the drums and soil reportedly removed from it?”

Military records show that chemicals were buried at the base in 1978 and then removed later without mentioning whether Agent Orange was among them and to where they were relocated.

What they suggest is that a large portion of the chemicals and surrounding soil is believed to have been excavated between 1982 and 1983 and placed into 55-gallon drums.

The U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) has downplayed the issue, claiming that its extensive surveys show contamination at the U.S. base is below the level considered hazardous and the disposal of Agent Orange has yet to be confirmed.

“So far, no evidence of Agent Orange has been discovered on Camp Carroll or in the surrounding community," Lt. Col. Andrew Mutter, a spokesman of the 8th U.S. Army said Thursday.

He said the 8th U.S. Army, the joint investigation team will extend the investigation to south of the camp’s helipad as advised by House and conduct additional soil sampling there.

Ok Gon, a member of the joint investigation team, also asserted that his team has already conducted a survey on the area where House claims to have buried the toxic defoliant with ground-penetrating radar.

The professor from Pukyong National University in Busan told local media that the radar can locate objects underground and determine changes in soil density. He said his team could not find any signs of abnormalities or digging at the site mentioned by House.

The Pentagon admits that it sprayed Agent Orange to clear plants near the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas in the late 1960s, but flatly denies its disposal of the deadly chemical within military camps or into waterways.

Earlier, U.S. veteran Steve Witter confessed that he put 25 to 100 gallons of leftover herbicide agent into the Imjin River, one of the major rivers in Korea near the DMZ, on a daily basis.

Former U.S. military officer Phil Stewart, who accompanied House on his visit to Camp Carroll, claims that he also witnessed the USFK discharging Agent Orange into the Imjin.

Agent Orange contains dioxins, which are notorious for causing serious health problems, including mental illness, cancer and fetal deformities in those who are exposed to it.