It could take months for military to learn if anything toxic was buried
in an overgrown corner of CFB Gagetown
It was more than just a stroll down memory lane for
Al White.
When the retired military police sergeant returned
to Base Gagetown in New Brunswick last week, he brought with him the memory and
the burden of friends lost to the ravages of time and cancer.
On Thursday, he also led scientists and
environmental engineers from National Defence on a damp trek directly to the
spot where he claims dozens of barrels containing the notorious defoliant Agent
Orange were secretly buried over three decades ago.
The location was not among the contaminated sites
flagged by the military in the six decades since the base was established.
"It's good," White told CBC News.
"I'm glad to be here to do this and bring some form of closure."
White claims that, in the late spring of 1985, he
escorted a flatbed truck loaded with chemical barrels to a point near the
base's tank training range, where they were buried in a large hole near an area
known as the Shirley Road dump.
It happened before sunrise and White said he'd
always found it suspicious. He kept silent, however, until he lost three
friends — all former Gagetown soldiers — to cancer.
The speed and confidence with which he pointed out
the site impressed defence officials, including the base's chief of environment
services, a geophysicist and a environmental engineer.
"Pretty darn precise," said Pam Cushing,
senior project manager with the National Defence Directorate of Contaminated
Sites.
Cushing and White used maps and aerial photos of
the area, wrapped in plastic against the rain, to confirm his recollection.
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