Agent Orange leaves imprint on Vietnam
DANANG - More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, the poisonous legacy of Agent Orange has emerged anew with a scientific study that has found extraordinarily high levels of health-threatening contamination at the former U.S. air base at Danang.
"They're the highest levels I've ever seen in my life," said Thomas Boivin, the scientist who conducted the tests this spring. "If this site were in the U.S. or Canada, it would require significant studies and immediate cleanup."
Soil tests by his firm, Hatfield Consultants of Canada, found levels of dioxin, the highly toxic chemical compound in Agent Orange, that were 300 to 400 times higher than internationally accepted limits.
The report has not yet been released, but Boivin and Vietnamese officials summarized its central findings for the Associated Press.
Earlier tests by Hatfield, which has been working in Vietnam since 1994, showed that dioxin levels were safe across most of Vietnam. But until the study of the old air base at Danang, the consulting firm had never had access to about a half-dozen "hotspots" where Agent Orange, a defoliant designed to deny Vietnamese jungle cover, was stored and mixed before being loaded onto planes.
The study is the product of a new spirit of cooperation between Washington and Hanoi - after years of disagreement - toward resolving this contentious leftover of the war that ended in 1975.
On a visit to Vietnam last fall, President Bush and Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet agreed to work together to address dioxin contamination at old Agent Orange storage sites. They are expected to discuss the issue further when Triet visits Washington next week.
The worst contamination in Danang is confined to a small section of the 2,100-acre base, the former Agent Orange mixing area.
The dioxin poses no immediate threat to the vast majority of the city's nearly 1 million people or the Danang International Airport terminal, which sits on the sprawling site and is widely used by tourists headed for Danang's beaches.
But blood tests found elevated dioxin levels in several dozen people who regularly fished or harvested lotus flowers from a contaminated lake on the site.
Tests also confirmed that rainwater has carried dioxin into city drains and into parts of a neighboring community that is home to more than 100,000 people, Boivin said. The levels there are only slightly elevated but could rise if the dioxin isn't properly contained.
The levels fall off dramatically outside the base, said Charles Bailey, Vietnam representative of the Ford Foundation, which financed Hatfield's study. "Nevertheless, it's a public health threat and it's a risk."
The United States is paying $400,000 for an engineering study of how to clean up the site. Ford, a New York-based charitable organization, also is paying for temporary containment measures, which will begin this summer, before monsoon season.
The Vietnamese military has taken some steps to contain the dioxin, but Le Ke Son, Vietnam's top Agent Orange official, said cleaning up Danang and other Agent Orange hotspots is likely to cost at least $40 million, far more than the developing country can afford.
"We have asked the American side to be more active, not just in doing research into the effects of Agent Orange but in overcoming its consequences," Son said. "Until we resolve this issue, we can't really say that we have truly normalized relations."
The U.S. Congress recently set aside $3 million to address dioxin contamination in Vietnam, and U.S. Ambassador Michael Marine said some of it could be used to help pay for a cleanup.
He said other donors, including the U.N. Development Program, might contribute.
Boivin said the United States should take the lead. "There's a real need for the U.S. to step up to the plate here and fund the cleanup of these sites," he said.
During the war, U.S. troops stored Agent Orange in 48-gallon barrels at a loading station on the base and diluted it with water before loading it on planes. In the process, the herbicide often spilled onto the ground.
Dioxin attaches itself to dirt and sediment and stays for generations, posing danger to people who touch it. Although not absorbed by crops such as rice, it remains in the fat of fish and other animals that ingest it and can be passed to humans through the food chain.
Vietnam and the United States have long disagreed about Agent Orange's impact on human health.
Vietnam says as many as 3 million of its 84 million people have birth defects or other health problems related to dioxin. The United States says the number is much lower and more scientific study is needed to prove a link to Agent Orange.
The United States compensates U.S. war veterans who say they were exposed to Agent Orange if they have certain health problems that have been linked to the herbicide.
A lawsuit seeking compensation from Agent Orange manufacturers, filed by the Vietnam Agent Orange Victims Association, is to be heard by a U.S. appeals court Monday.
By Ben Stocking - The Associated Press - June 15, 2007.
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