[CPEO-MEF] GLOBAL, HERBICIDES: "As Okinawa confronts dioxin, Vietnam offers lessons"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

As Okinawa confronts dioxin, Vietnam offers lessons
Health monitoring and safety measures urged as U.S. denials fly in face of mounting toxic evidence on island

BY JON MITCHELL
Japan Times
January 13, 2016


Last month, Urasoe in Okinawa pledged to conduct a survey of former base employees to ascertain the extent of environmental contamination at Camp Kinser, a 2.7-square-kilometer U.S. Marine Corps supply base located in the city just north of Naha. Urasoe’s director of planning, Setsuo Shimoji, announced the municipality would work with prefectural authorities to carry out the investigation, and that the city would also request funding from the national government.

This is believed to be the first time that such a large-scale survey of former base workers has been launched in Japan.

Triggering Urasoe’s decision were Pentagon documents, obtained by The Japan Times under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, that revealed serious contamination at Camp Kinser. According to the reports, military supplies returned during the Vietnam War leaked substances including dioxin (aka TCDD), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and insecticides within the base, killing marine life. Subsequent cleanup attempts were so ineffective that U.S. authorities worried civilian workers may have been poisoned in the 1980s, and, as late as 1990, they were concerned that toxic hot spots remained within the installation.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2016/01/13/issues/vietnam-offers-lessons-okinawa-confronts-dioxin/#.VpcuvYS3mOo

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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