By Lee Tae-hoon
A new allegation has surfaced over the U.S. Army’s involvement in the disposal of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange, into Korean waterways during its massive defoliation campaign in the 1960s.
According to a document that The Korea Times obtained Sunday, a U.S. veteran claimed that he released 25 to 100 gallons of leftover herbicide agents into major waterways, including the Imjin River, and by roadsides on a daily basis.
“It was common maintenance practice for us to release the remaining agents on to road ways, road sides, in rivers including the Imjin River or into creek beds,” Steve Witter stated in a letter to the State of Washington in 2004.
“We were never warned that the agents were hazardous nor told that we could not dump chemicals on roadways in rivers and or creek beds.”
The Imjin River is one of the major rivers in Korea that runs through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides South and North Korea.
Witter served with a decontamination unit at Camp Howze near the border town of Paju between 1968 and 1969. His responsibility was destroying the foliage in and around the heavily fortified border using Agent Orange in an effort to improve the detection of North Korean infiltrations.
``We also travelled in and or near the DMZ. We also treated areas along or near the Imjin River with herbicide agents,” he recalled.
“Because there weren't provisions in camps or at staging locations to dump the herbicides agents at day’s end, we would open the valves to drain the tanks.”
Witter noted that the chemical company had four trucks that had tanks carrying 400 to 450 gallons of Agent Orange mixed with diesel.
The veteran said he found it odd that rubber, including the hoses and tires on the truck, would soften like gum when exposed to the agents.
“The hoses on the tanks constantly melted causing them to break and created direct exposure,” he said.
"The rubber on the soles of our shoes would also turn soft and glue like. At no time were we ever supplied protective equipment.”
Witter argued that he and others involved in the spraying found their skin and eyes would feel “irritated, burning, leaving a grayish color to our skin” after the applications of herbicides agents.
He was diagnosed with diabetes and many other complications in 1990.
Several former U.S. servicemen based in Korea have also testified that they were aware of the discharge of harmful herbicides, including Agent Orange, according to documents of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that The Korea Times obtained.
The government records show that Ralph White stated last year to the VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeal that he was informed of “spraying Agent Orange and dumping unused amounts into the local rivers, streams, and ground.”
White also told the board that there was no vegetation, including grass, inside or surrounding his base during his service at Camp Market in Incheon from February 1969 to March 1970.
The retired soldier noted that he was assigned to load 55 gallon barrels stacked up labeled with "hazardous materials" symbols onto trucks.
Meanwhile, a joint investigation team into the Agent Orange scandal by U.S. Forces Korea and the Korean military announced Saturday that it would expand their ongoing probe into the extent of the U.S. Army’s disposal of toxic chemicals.
The team said it will also interview one of its former civilian employees who claims he witnessed the burial of Agent Orange inside a U.S. Army camp in the South in the 1970s.
The move came following retired U.S. soldiers’ statements that they had helped dump some 250 drums of leftover Agent Orange in 1978 inside Camp Carroll in Chilgok, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
Agent Orange contains dioxin, which is notorious for causing serious health problems, including mental illness, cancer and fetal deformities to those who are exposed to it.
The Pentagon admits that it used the toxic defoliant to clear plants near the DMZ in the late 1960s.
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