By USFK has now confirmed what ROK Drop commenters have already been saying happened, that in 1978 barrels filled with chemicals were buried on Camp Carroll but were uncovered and disposed of the following year:
The 8th Army said Monday that chemicals were buried at Camp Carroll in 1978 but were removed in the following two years, a finding that could back claims made last week by U.S. veterans who said they helped bury Agent Orange there.
A 1992 Army Corps of Engineers environmental assessment found that a “large number” of drums containing pesticides, herbicides and solvents were buried at the base. The study did not say if Agent Orange was among those chemicals, according to an 8th Army news release. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link but of interest is the fact that trace amounts of dioxin was found in the soil underneath Camp Carroll back in 2004, but that it is at such a low level that it is harmless to humans. This is good to hear but I’m sure the ROK government will want some more robust soil testing done to calm the public on the health risk to people working on and living around the camp.
Also the article says that small protests have begun outside the camp. I was wondering how long it would be before the anti-US groups in South Korea try to jump on this issue to continue their efforts to drive a wedge between USFK and the Korean public. If USFK doesn’t handle this issue correctly and does anything that seems like a cover up is happening this could explode. So far they are doing the right thing by having a joint investigation with the ROK government.
Finally I think JoeC made a good point in this prior comment, how can the VA now deny anyone who served in Korea during this agent orange time frame compensation if these barrels that were buried on Camp Carroll are confirmed to be agent orange? I have had many veterans e-mail me before and tell me how they were exposed to agent orange on camps in Uijongbu for example when barrels were stored there and were denied VA compensation because no evidence could be found that agent orange was ever at those camps. If agent orange made it as far south as Camp Carroll, how can the VA deny a claim from someone stationed elsewhere in Korea that claims they were exposed to agent orange? The first posting I did two years ago on agent orange in Korea is filled with commenters who said their VA claims were denied by the VA because they were not stationed on the DMZ. This will likely have to change if agent orange is found on Camp Carroll and probably reason why the three veterans decided to come forward and tell their story.
9:41 am on May 23rd, 2011 1
Probably dumped in the river.
1:46 pm on May 23rd, 2011 2
’78-’79 was Jimmy Carter…
2:11 pm on May 23rd, 2011 3
#2
… and that means … ?
3:13 pm on May 23rd, 2011 4
#3, That means we can’t blame Bush/Cheney/Halliburton…
3:19 pm on May 23rd, 2011 5
The Officer that dug it up was a fine officer and risked his carrer to dig it up. The paper work will be found. just takes time. 32 years is a long time in KOREA. one day years ago I heard a story … Signal Ncowas complaining about the phone system and said the US army has been here for 25 years andthe phone system is still shit..A Korean civilian worker replied The US ary has been here 25 years one year at a time. So true.. so many GIs just go and spend the first few months getting htere feet under them worka couple of months andthen get short timers attitude.. So there is not insitutional memory….
5:26 pm on May 23rd, 2011 6
Camp
Carroll is not in the 44th Engr Bn area of operation. This would have been someone from the 802nd Engr Bn if Engineers were involved.
6:32 pm on May 23rd, 2011 7
Yes, 44th ENG (2ID) were at CP Howze but units move around sometimes… From the 19th ESC page:
This certainly doesn’t mean they were there in the 70′s but elements could have been.
6:45 pm on May 23rd, 2011 8
Some additional stuff from various sources:
THE ENTIRE 44TH EBC MOVED TO CAMP CARROLL, WAEGWON, IN SPRING, 1963
I am in search(sic) of help from anyone who might have been stationed in Korea from 68-69. My late husband was with the Bravo 44th Engineer Batt. Camp Carroll.
A Company, 44th Eng Battalion. I served from Nov 66 to Dec 67 at Camp Carroll
Still doesn’t get us to the 70′s but it is fairly obvious various detachments of the 44th worked all over Korea at various times on projects or were farmed out to different camps.
7:57 pm on May 23rd, 2011 9
SFC, have you spoken to anyone at USFK about what you remember from when the barrels were dug up?
9:37 pm on May 23rd, 2011 10
[...] at ROK Drop, a very good question is being asked: Finally I think JoeC made a good point in this prior comment, how can the VA now deny anyone who [...]
7:48 am on May 24th, 2011 11
@ Leon
I served with the C Co 44 th Engrs from 77 to 78 and 80 to 81. All units of the 44th were based from west of Seoul (Camp Mercer) to Camp Nimble across the river from Camp Casey.
The 802nd Engr Bn served the Southern half of the country. The furtherest South that I ever worked with the 44th either time was at a joint American/ South Korean Air Force Base about a hour South of Seoul.
3:35 pm on May 24th, 2011 12
Hey RokDrop
A former KATUSA solider from the 44th is reporting that a Korean newspaper is now claiming that some chemicals were buried on Camp Mercer before the 44th Engr Bn served there. It is said that a chemical company occupied the base prior to us. Any truth to this or just rumor???
4:41 pm on May 24th, 2011 13
Curiouser and curiouser…
6:04 pm on May 24th, 2011 14
They should check Osan AB while they are at it.
When BG Maurice Forsyth was in charge, I remember guys talking about a big chemical spill being covered up… might have been POL.
I got the impression that it was more of a paperwork/bad publicity big deal than an actual environmental big deal.
But they were worried about the water samples… so who knows?
7:45 pm on May 24th, 2011 15
I’m sure the Korean media would love to make a big deal about this but you will rarely hear about their own internal problems.
Daegu (K-2) airbase for example — a ROKAF base that used to have a USAF detachment. I was there from ’83 to ’84. They had (maybe still do) a big ground contamination problem. The hanger they gave us to work out of had a fume sensor system. If we had a heavy rain the sensor would go off.
The story was a lieutenant came in one morning to open up, flipped the light switch and there was an explosion. The ground under the hanger as saturated with jet fuel. When it rained, the fuel layer would rise and fill the hanger with fumes. At one time, that was where the fuel storage tank was kept. It had a massive leak that was undetected.
Inquiring minds might wonder just how far that contamination had spread, but there are some questions best not asked.
7:47 pm on May 24th, 2011 16
#12 – yes…the Camp Mercer story hit the Korean 24-hour news channels this morning – saw it before I left for work this AM…
9:23 pm on May 24th, 2011 17
[...] veteran Steve House, one of the men who claimed they buried Agent Orange in Waegwan. And indeed, GI Korea appears to have been right — looks like he’s having trouble with the [...]
10:02 pm on May 24th, 2011 18
If this does spill over to ground contamination in general, there will be plenty of stuff to gin out, if that is what the media decides to do.
It is actually an old standby. It never generates sizable street protests, but it has been brought out by the media to drum beat for a few weeks. It usually came up once or twice a year.
It is a useful tool, because pretty much anywhere in a city in Korea you dig, you’re going to find soil pollution.
A friend of mine who is an environmental engineer in the US said that 80% of the gas stations in the US have some issues. Of course, the older the site is, the more problems it will have, because standards and methods have changed over time.
But, that doesn’t mean anything to the Korean media when it wants to stoke anti-USFK anxiety.
I don’t know if it is still the case, but when I checked on coverage of pollution issues with Korean chaebol (using my low level Korean), I found that the chaebol never had their names mentioned as culprits. One example was about air and soil pollution in a city in the southeast. No company names were mentioned. I had to google to find that that small city was a bastion of Hyundai.
4:39 pm on May 25th, 2011 19
JoeC @ 15: Were you there with the 497th FS? I was at Taegu with the 15th TRS Aug 89 to Aug 90 as OIC of the Photographic Interpretation section. The story you heard was true. I heard it from the Superintendent of the 460th TRG Ground Safety shop in the fall of 1989. The explosion was in 1981 & it was a Capt from Transportation who was blown up. The “building” was actually a garage with a few offices & the Capt had been in-country four days. Luckily he had come to work early and was the only one in the garage at the time. The investigators determined that the POL tanks were the cause. The Japanese had built the tanks in 1938 & as they began to leak, the fuel followed the georgraphy of the land & hence, ended up pooling under the garage.
Safety had estimated the pumps would take out a total of 180,000 gallons. By the fall of 1989, the pumps had already taken out close to 180K gallons & it was still going strong.
As you know, that garage was re-built. By the time I arrived, the garage was the office space for us PPIF officers & section NCOICs. It took time to get used to the smell but I usually avoided that big ditch that ran next to road. I know I have some photos lying around somewhere…
5:57 pm on May 25th, 2011 20
Small world…I went down to Daegu in 89 when they moved the RF-4C’s down there from Osan. I was ECM, worked the AN/ALR-46 Radar Warning Receiver and the AN/ALQ-125 TEREC systems.
7:43 pm on May 25th, 2011 21
#19
Yes, the 497th (F-4E’s) but under the maintenance unit. I believe it was CAMS (Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron)
8:37 pm on May 25th, 2011 22
Nomad, so you were part of COMMANDO FLASH — or as my NCOs called it, COMMANDO FLUSH?
Did you have any contact with the TEREC guys in the PPIF? Did you live in the 3400 block? I felt bad for the people who lived there. Here I was, living in the new officer quarters, and a lot of people lived in a place that was supposed to be torn down & instead was “refurbished”. “The Ghetto” was a good nickname for it. Fortunately my guys who lived in the 1950s two-story buildings just down the road from the Club. But I could never figure out what genius came up the idea of having an exterior stairway to get to the second floor…
JoeC, CAMS was the right name. If I recall there were about 1500 people at Taegu under the 460th TRG and the CAMS formed about half of the group. Then again, the squadron had 26 jets.
8:39 pm on May 25th, 2011 23
“I’m sure the Korean media would love to make a big deal about this but you will rarely hear about their own internal problems.”
And you are so sure about this? How? You’ve probably never read the Korean media in your life since you can’t speak Korean.
And dumping oil into the ground is not the same as dumping America’s supply of Agent Orange, a toxic chemical all over South Korea, essentially using South Korea as a dumping ground for America’s waste. Get real. How would you like it, if Korean military used California and New York to dump Korea’s nuclear waste near LA and New York City?
And USinKorea, how predictable of you. Here we are, American are the ones who dumped toxic wastes all over Korea, and it’s Americans who were involved in leaking this information, and it’s somehow Korean media’s fault? GTFO, you bigot.
9:22 pm on May 25th, 2011 24
Tom, at least I’m in…8 years or so total since graduating college. How many for you? Two forced years of miltary duty…
Let’s work on facts:
Agent Orange brought in by the US was not waste. It was an active agent. It was a chemical the military was using to defoliate the DMZ. Likening it to nuclear waste used in Korea and then shipped to the US is – ignorant.
It is most likely Korea’s Pres. Park agreed with the program since it was Korean troops who deployed it at the DMZ.
Knowledge, understanding, and environmentalism of today are not what they were in the 1960s and 70s. You’ve gone to college. You should be able to wrap your head around the concept…
Whatever the case, the Agent Orange issue has been and continues to be worked out in the courts, with Koreans too receiving compensation.
Nice stab at a point. But, go to google news and search for agent orange, korea and see what media is pumping the story for the first 4 or so pages…
Agent Orange in Korea is an old big story. The new information is not big news – except for the Korean media (and we’ll see how much legs it has these days among the Korean audience).
In the past, they have been as myopic and logically challenged as you: unable to see beyond the stars and stripes of the American flag. Unable to understand the difference time makes. Unable to compare and contrast standard Korean practices vs that of USFK.
But, hey, if you and others like you couldn’t grasp how American beef didn’t seem to be killing millions of Americans (especially Korean-Americans) year after year – and instead went nuts about how Koreans were genetically predisposed to death by American cows…
I’m just whistling in the wind…
3:48 am on May 26th, 2011 25
“But, hey, if you and others like you couldn’t grasp how American beef didn’t seem to be killing millions of Americans ”
American beef doesn’t kill millions, but does kill thousands. You are so ignorant of what’s happening within your country.
8:47 pm on July 12th, 2011 26
#23 OH Look Tom, the Korean Media picked up on this blog post
9:19 pm on July 12th, 2011 27
Translated:
US Military On Duty in Uijeongbu also got exposed to defoliant
By Reporter Kim Kyeongnyeon
There has often been testimony that things such
as defoliant, syphillis, and chemical agents have been buried or poured out in several places
around USFK bases; this time around at the US Military base in Kyeonggido’s Uijeongbu the question has been
raised about the possibility that US Forces were exposed to defoliant.
On the 23rd, The USFK Soldier-Blogger ‘GI Korea’ on his own Korea-related news website rokdrop.com emphasized that:
“In soil tests on Camp Carol Dioxin was detected in small [trace] amounts that would be not harmful to
humans. That’s fortunate but I’m sure the ROK government will want some more robust soil
testing done to calm the public on the health risk to people working on and living around the
camp.”
He wrote that small groups of protestors were gathering outside the base and that
” If USFK doesn’t handle this issue correctly and does anything that seems like a cover up is happening this [anti-US Sentiment]
could explode.”
[The article basically quotes this part, more or less:]
If agent orange made it as far south as Camp Carroll, how can the VA deny a claim from someone stationed elsewhere in Korea that claims they were exposed to agent orange? The first posting I did two years ago on agent orange in Korea is filled with commenters who said their VA claims were denied by the VA because they were not stationed on the DMZ.
In a post written by a person called JOEC he says
“Now that it is reported chemicals were buried at Camp Carroll the day after the USFK commander said there were no records of those chemicals being there, leaves open another issue. How can the VA deny Agent Orange disease claims based on the records of where it was used and stored when there is now evidence there was such poor record keeping?
9:34 pm on July 12th, 2011 28
Huh?
“Syphillis” has “been buried or poured out in several places
around USFK bases”?
Who the hell keeps a jar of syphilis lying around?
“Hey, Private Jerkbag, run up to supply and get me a large jar of syphilis. With all this juicy crackdown stuff, the unit is getting low.”
3:41 am on July 13th, 2011 29
Yeah, I said the same thing when I read it and triple checked that one.
3:41 am on July 13th, 2011 30
OhMyNews is the wikipedia of online newspapers however.
4:10 am on July 13th, 2011 31
No, they told Private Jerkbag to take ChickenHead to the base hospital and collect a specimen of his cerebrospinal fluid.
4:31 am on July 13th, 2011 32
The reporting style of slashing bits and pieces for the reporter to reach one conclusion sort of reminds me of the KCNA.
4:38 am on July 13th, 2011 33
“No, they told Private Jerkbag to take ChickenHead to the base hospital and collect a specimen of his cerebrospinal fluid.”
Because, when you have that much awesome all in one place, you just gotta get a sample.
4:13 pm on July 16th, 2011 34
I served with HHC 802d in 72′ &73. I was on a surveying crew and traveled the entire company (including missle sites). So much crap went on that this doesn’t surprise me at all.
4:14 pm on July 16th, 2011 35
please insert “country” in place of “company”.
6:08 pm on August 11th, 2011 36
I was assigned to the 6170CSS at K2 airbase in 1981 when this explosion happened. As stated before it was caused by 3 days of heavy rain (over the labor day weekend). At about 6 am Capt Arnold of the 6497CAMS came into his office turned on the lights and the building blew up on him and the NCO (MSgt Falls) that was with him at the time. The NCO was near the entrance to the building and the force of the explosion blew him out of the building. Capt Arnold was not so lucky, he spent a few days in country just to get him stabilized. He later was MEDEVACed to the Army burn center in Texas where he later died. The road running to that area was later renamed Arnold Ave in honor of Capt Arnold.
Later the POL extraction system was put in place to try to get most of the fuel out of the ground. Needless to say that every time it rained that no one wanted to stay in any building in that area whenever it rain and the smell of fuel was present.
6:11 am on October 11th, 2011 37
I was in B Co 51 sig 68-69 was supply driver. Have a claim for agent orange over a yr now. would like any info on agent orange at this time.
6:55 am on October 11th, 2011 38
I was with B co 51st Sig Uijongbu 68 – 69 Was agent orange there at this time frame . Please let me have any info, on this matter. mdeskins58@verizon.net Army
6:07 pm on February 9th, 2012 39
What About Earlier Years?
I Was Stationed At Camp Carroll from March 1973 Thur March 1974.
69Th. Transportation Battalion – 28 Trans Company EAKS2TG69T
6:23 pm on February 9th, 2012 40
The Wonder Years!