Vietnam will need at least five years and more than US$250 million
to clean up dioxin at a Vietnam War airbase near Ho Chi Minh City, but
lacks both the technology and money required, an official said Tuesday.
Le Ke Son, director of a national project for cleaning the
chemicals left behind by the US, said more than 250,000 cubic meters of
soil at the Bien Hoa military airbase is contaminated and some spots
have the world's highest concentration at 1.18 million ppt (parts per
trillion).
The airbase, around 30 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City in Dong Nai
Province, is the largest of its kind in Vietnam and is severely
polluted since it was occupied by the US Air Force.
Son said the dioxin concentration at the air base ranges from 1,000 ppt upwards while 100 ppt is considered high.
He said officials had initially estimated that only 75,000 cubic
meters of soil was contaminated, but proper surveys found more affected
spots.
“Given the complicated situation, we won’t be able to clean the
airbase by 2020 as we do not have proper technology or money,” he said
while speaking at a conference held by the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP) in Dong Nai.
The US stored a huge amount of dioxin including Agent Orange, Agent
White, and Agent Blue at the airbase to use as defoliants and clear the
forests used as natural cover by Vietnamese revolutionary forces.
Between 1969 and 1970, 2,500 liters of Agent White and 25,000
liters of Agent Orange leaked into the environment, including lakes, Son
said.
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