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The Vietnam News

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U.S. makes grant to help Vietnam dioxin cleanup

HANOI - The United States is donating $400,000 to Vietnam toward cleaning up poisonous dioxin from a wartime U.S. airbase, officials said on Friday in what was described as an important step in healing a bitter war legacy. The announcement at a joint news conference moves the two governments within months of containing the poison code-named "agent orange" within a section of Danang airport in central Vietnam used by the Americans during the 1960s and 70s war.

"We want this joint effort to come up with a good remediation plan in Danang," U.S. Ambassador to Hanoi Michael Marine told reporters. "Then of course there is the process of finding the funding to carry forward these efforts." Scientists have identified Danang and two other former U.S. bases -- Phu Cat in central Binh Dinh province and Bien Hoa in the southern province of Dong Nai -- as "hot spots" that present a danger to people living near them. Authorities in Danang and Bien Hoa have warned residents living near the two bases not to drink the water or grow vegetables in the soil near the facilities. The chemicals were stored and spilled at all three wartime bases.

A study by Vietnamese and Canadian scientists of Hatfield environmental consultants in West Vancouver, British Columbia, measured dioxin levels in the soil near Bien Hoa that are hundreds of times higher than is acceptable in other countries. An estimated 70 million liters of toxic chemicals were used from 1961 to 1971 by the U.S. military and the South Vietnam government it supported. The war ended on April 30, 1975 when the communist North took Saigon, re-named Ho Chi Minh City. Dioxin is a small compound within the "agent orange" herbicide that the Americans used to defoliate the jungles where communist troops were based, but it is one of the most toxic compounds known, scientists say.

Funding effort

The $400,000 includes a Department of State grant and money and technical assistance to be provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the embassy said. The rest of a roughly $1 million fund comes from the Vietnam government, the New York-based Ford Foundation philanthropy and others. "It is a very important step and you have heard of the phrase of the journey of 1,000 steps," Charles Bailey, the Vietnam representative of the Ford Foundation, said after the news conference. "It proposes to contain dioxin in Danang airport in the next few months." Washington has ruled out paying compensation to Vietnam and the issue of lingering impacts of dioxin has been a thorn in otherwise friendly ties in recent years. Washington's position is that there is no proven link between the spraying of dioxin and human health and disability.

Hanoi and Washington restored diplomatic relations in 1995 and have cemented their friendship on trade ties as Vietnam's market economy grows, but they have also cooperated in fighting HIV/ AIDS and avian flu.

At Friday's news conference, the Vietnamese official heading dioxin remediation efforts said there had not been enough cooperation between the two governments on dioxin. "It is too little compared with other fields," said Le Ke Son, of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. "It is hard to explain and not acceptable." The issue is also legally sensitive because a Vietnamese victims group is suing 37 U.S. chemical companies in a U.S. Federal court. The class action suit was thrown out in March 2005 and the group is appealing the ruling.

By Grant McCool - Reuters - February 9, 2007.