By The claims of toxic chemicals being buried on Camp Carroll has now spread to the former USFK facility Camp Mercer, which is now a ROK Army facility:
South Korea’s defense ministry said Wednesday it has launched an on-site inspection into a former U.S. military base in the South where American troops allegedly dumped large amounts of chemicals in the 1960s.
The investigation followed a new allegation raised by an American veteran, retired Master Sgt. Ray Bows, who revealed that U.S. troops buried “hundreds of gallons” of chemicals at Camp Mercer in Bucheon, west of the South’s capital of Seoul, between 1963 and 1964.
The ministry said it sent a team of officials and environmental experts to the former U.S. military base, which was returned to South Korea in 1993 and is used as a base for Korean engineering troops.
“The team plans to review environmental data of the base and check areas where chemicals were suspected of being buried,” said Kim Jung-chul, head of the ministry’s Military installation Planning Bureau.
“If they detect any signs of pollutant contamination on the soil, we will immediately dig into the area,” Kim told reporters.
So far, the ministry has found no military records that support the new allegations at the former U.S. military base, Kim said. [Yonhap News]
You can read more at the link but the Camp Mercer dumping claims were made on the Korean War Project website which is linked to on my sidebar and has long served as a discussion forum for former Korea veterans. It appears there is truth to the Camp Mercer dumping claim though because if you go to the 44th Engineer Battalion Facebook site for veterans that served at Camp Mercer you will see that among the veterans commenting there, they remember rumors of chemicals being dumped on the camp as well. I would not be surprised if chemicals were dumped on this camp because the camp is located in Kimpo, which at the time the bases in this area were major logistical hubs to support US forces on the DMZ. Below is a Google Maps link that shows where Camp Mercer is located:
Here is a close up Google Earth image of Camp Mercer:
The reason I can see someone dumping chemicals here back in the early 1960′s is because I can easily imagine some low level leaders just deciding it would be easier to dump chemicals such as oil and radiator fluid into a hole back then instead of going through the processes that the US military has today to dispose of chemicals properly. These chemicals alleged to have been dumped at Camp Mercer I seriously doubt was Agent Orange because this toxic defoliant was first used in Korea in 1968. That is why I think these chemicals were likely motorpool fluids, but that is why an investigation is needed to confirm this.
Back in 2005 when USFK turned in a number of camps in the 2nd Infantry Division area ground contamination was a major issue that the anti-US groups were using to drive a wedge between USFK and the Korean public. In response USFK did ground contamination studies of all those camps and did help pay to clean them up though USFK has no obligation under the SOFA to do so. At this point it would probably would be wise for USFK to conduct ground contamination surveys of all the current camps as well to show the Korean public that USFK is taking this issue seriously. It would likewise probably be a good idea for the ROK government to conduct ground contamination surveys of their own military facilities as well considering that director of the Korean Environmental Remediation Division criticized South Korean army bases as being more polluted than the US camp he looked at.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but USFK needs to definitely take this extremely seriously or risk having a major Korean public backlash later. The chemical dumping concerns are much more serious than the mad cow nonsense of 2008 and look how that turned out, and these dumping claims are actually true to an extent so far unlike the mad cow claims.
By the way you can read more on this topic over at the Marmot’s Hole who shares some of the Korean media reaction to this latest USFK pollution news.
7:52 am on May 25th, 2011 1
–sigh– Why do articles like this never to logical follow through – about environmental policies of the time, common practices of the time (and later), the environmental situation in similar areas for the Korean military, Korean chaebol, Korean soil in general, and so on…
Back when the Yonsan mortuary scandle was hot-n-heavy, I did some checking, and I found a small article about some Korean logging companies getting fined repeatedly for dumping tons of the same material into the Han as the gallons that sent the Korean media into a tizzy and ginned up a good bit of angry sentiment in the society.
I also found a couple of small articles about illegal (unlicensed) businesses along the Han being fined repeatedly for not disposing of wastes properly and just dumping them straight into the Han resevoir and river. This included wastes from gas stations and car shops to restaraunts dumping raw sewage. Why? Because it was cheaper to keep paying the fines than take care of the waste legally.
In short, if the Korean media wants to keep running these “toxic USFK” stories, they can do it until they de-paper the country.
With the positive change in environmental standards and public conception, USFK, the Korean military, the chaebol, and the government and so on, should be looking around at troubled spots caused by how things were done in the past, and they should be cleaning them up.
And they, in fact, are…
But, these stories are written for a different purpose…
7:58 am on May 25th, 2011 2
I also want to point out again — when I checked a couple of years ago, when the Korean media did pollution news stories that involved more than mom-n-pop type Korean businesses, they did not publish the names of the polluter.
Even on stories in locations where it was obvious what major chaebol has factories there, no names were included. In one TV Korean news report, where they filmed reporters on the scene, they put a mosaic over the factor’s name and also on the company logos on trucks pulling out of the factory.
That is the extent to which the Korean media (is forced to) avoids doing this kind of bombardment coverage of pollution issues outside of those involving USFK or the US Embassy.
12:37 pm on May 25th, 2011 3
One time back in the 1980s, I was at the Yongsan Auto Craft Shop. There was an old guy in charge of the place (can’t remember his name – but he drove a souped up AMC Eagle). They had these big, wide oil pans for changing your motor oil that were 3-4 inches deep. One day I was getting ready to change my oil and noticed the pan was full. I asked him where do I drain the pan. He grumbled about something and cussed for a few seconds…and then grabbed the pan and tossed the oil through the fence on the front side of the shop (near where the outside lift is now located). It trickled down the side of the hill…and that was that. He said no one would ever notice it.
Should I report this?
1:01 pm on May 25th, 2011 4
The only pollution in Korea is because of the
ChineseJapaneseMongolAmerican invaders!!/sarc
2:30 pm on May 25th, 2011 5
The timing? There’s a Korean presidential election next year. How convenient.
7:05 pm on May 25th, 2011 6
I want to correct something that ROKDROP may have quoted me on. I said I had heard stories about a dump at Camp Mercer. I never witnessed were it was located or could confirm or denie that it was there.
When I was at Camp Mercer most of the motor pools were nothing but a gravel parking lot. If a little oil or other substance spilled on the ground we didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about it. We just kicked a little dirt over it and that was that.
I think the thing that ROKDROP may have missed was that a chemical unit was stationed at Mercer prior to the 44th. Also I have no claim with the VA either.
And if you ever got stuck behind a honey truck in downtown Seoul you would think you were involved in a chemical attack.
8:39 pm on May 25th, 2011 7
Jerry that is why I called what the 44th veterans were saying as “rumors” because I didn’t read anyone on the site saying they personally saw chemicals dumped. So far I haven’t seen anything convincing on the Camp Mercer claims yet though I wouldn’t be surprised if motorpool fluids were dumped at the site decades ago.
10:55 pm on May 25th, 2011 8
Dear God… They’re actually going to try to make an issue out of this? Korea, the land where nobody cared about this crap, and you’d see companies breaking up transformers and dumping the oil on the ground right by a working rice paddy? The country where nobody seemed to care about hazardous waste at all, during my first tour there?
I spent a year on Camp Mercer, right before the place was turned over to the ROK Army. Chemical contamination? Maybe, depending on how you define it, but that camp was so bloody small it’s not even funny. We damn near had to run around it twice, for a PT test. There wasn’t room to bury something like a huge amount of Agent Orange, and I’m not seeing the likelihood that even back in the 1960s the Army leadership would have been so stupid as to actually do that on the camp they were living on… They’d have damn near been burying it in under the barracks, the place was so small.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, though, that they find the soil contaminated from the motor pools. The vehicles leaked, and despite the best of intentions, the drip pans were never enough.
What I do find highly ironic, however, is the blithe disregard I noted in the surrounding communities for hazardous waste. I used to go walking around the camp, in order to catch the bus, and I’d vary my route. On the east side of the camp there was a fairly large light industrial area, and the Koreans who ran the shops usually just dumped all their waste in the street, or out in a field–Where others would be growing vegetables. You’d walk by a patch of ground with drums dumped in the ditch, and on the other side of the ditch, somebody had their greenhouses set up.
If the Koreans are getting upset now, with the US, they need to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and remember just how little concern they had for the same issue, back then. The US Army at least tried to follow modern safety standards with this stuff, but it wasn’t easy to do, when the supporting infrastructure wasn’t there. Stateside, civilian contractors come in and pick up the waste, for re-processing. In Korea, we hired civilians for the same thing, but they’d come in, pick up the stuff in Bongo trucks and open drums, and drive off sloshing anti-freeze and oil all over the roads…
I didn’t see sealed tanks for the HAZMAT contractors until my tour in 2000-2001, up at Camp Howze. And, even then, they were just a little casual about the whole thing. I saw one of their trucks involved in an accident out in the local community, and even though the truck was tipped completely over, they just picked the truck up, and hauled it off. There wasn’t even an attempt made to excavate and haul off the contaminated soil–The farmer just went right on cultivating it, the entire time I was there. You could see the huge semi-circular patch where the contaminants went, because of the stunted plant growth.
The Koreans can bitch all they want about what the US Army did in Korea, but the fact remains that up until the early 2000s, they were far more cavalier about this stuff than the US was. Honestly, I’d be willing to bet that any contamination they find on Camp Mercer might just have likely have come from outside the camp as on it, judging from what I saw in the local community. If the Army has any sense, they’re going to demand comparison testing upstream and uphill from the camp, as there was a lot of higher ground on the east and southeast edge of the camp. The civilians had encroached almost to the damn fenceline, when I was there, with the exception of a small swath of farmland on the north side.
Let’s not even get into the whole asbestos issue, either. I know for a fact that the Army Corps of Engineers tried getting the contractors to follow the rules about asbestos abatement, but the contractors just wouldn’t play ball. They thought we were crazy, with all our rules on the issue. One of my friends was a construction inspector, and he actually got told by a contractor that the contractor didn’t need an abatement plan, or safety gear. Why? From the contractors mouth, almost verbatim: “Asbestosis take 5 year to develop, no? Korean average lifespan for men, age 60. All my worker on asbestos, over age 55… No problem!”. I know it sounds like a bad joke, but I was there waiting for him to get done with his inspection, so we could go to lunch. And, the amazing thing about it? The contractor was serious.
Needless to say, that “plan” didn’t fly, and the contractor got thrown off the job.
3:55 am on May 26th, 2011 9
ROK is making a big deal out of nothing! Says the Americans. It’s only Agent Orange and it’s only dirty Korea, why dirty Koreans care?
3:58 am on May 26th, 2011 10
The way the USFK is behaving, I think the USFK is very scared that this can turn into another 2002.
It only tells us that Koreans have taught them a valuable lesson. 
9:05 am on May 26th, 2011 11
hey kirk and dudes,
there are huge difference between used engine oil and Agent Orange.
and think about this when you throw away your shits in your neighbor’s back yard. even though the dumb neighbor doesn’t care about their shits on their backyard. and stupid Korean politicians can’t exploit this case for their stupid political play but clever Obama did.
don’t try to justify anything you did. just say sorry,clean up your mess, compensate and leave. and don’t say you guys are protecting ROK from N.K and China.
no one welcomes the U.S army except in U.S
7:57 am on June 3rd, 2011 12
It really doesn’t matter what the Koreans do to and in their own country. We (the stinking UN forces) still have the resposibility, both legal and moral, to wipe their chemical asses.
7:59 am on June 3rd, 2011 13
….that should be “our” chemical asses!
9:59 am on June 7th, 2011 14
I was stationed at camp mercer from 1984-1986. I am currently out of work on short term disability due to a number of illnesses that are stumping the Drs.Any comments or other websites I can go to,to try to get help would be greatly appreciated
5:59 pm on February 7th, 2012 15
6:45 pm on February 7th, 2012 16
Well, I see what you’re saying. I worked with very high power microwave communications equipment and one of the young operators came down with a brain tumor, almost over night. Most suspicious.
9:12 pm on February 7th, 2012 17
I worked around teenage bargirls and prostitutes and frequently experienced swelling at night.
9:33 pm on February 7th, 2012 18
17. …there was some wired shit that went on there.