By Via the Marmot’s Hole comes news about USFK reports about contamination at Camp Carroll that the usual suspects in the Korean media and political establishment are trying to frame as some kind of US military cover up. As Robert Koehler points out at the Marmot’s Hole these US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) documents are available via a Google search that he did, so if USFK was trying to cover up these documents they didn’t do a very good job.
Anyway, what these documents show is that USFK was aware of contamination on Camp Carroll prior to the Agent Orange claims. USFK was conducting an environmental study to determine if additional housing could be constructed on Camp Carroll. They detected a number of chemicals from this study, but it should be pointed out that none of them was Agent Orange. Here are the executive summaries from the two draft documents that shows what they found out:
Executive Summary: The US Army Corps of Engineers, Far East District (FED) conducted a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) in the vicinity of Bachelor’s Enlisted Quarter (BEQ) Hill of Camp Carroll during February 2009 to May 2010. The BEQ Hill is located at the northeastern portion of Camp Carroll. The RI at the site was conducted to better delineate the lateral extent of groundwater contamination and the levels of chemicals of potential concern (COPC) in the vicinity of the BEQ Hill. The FS was also conducted to evaluate potential remedial alternatives for the site investigated.
A total of three groundwater monitoring wells were constructed at the site in order to identify the existence, and extent of, groundwater contamination The wells were placed on the possible migration pathway of groundwater based on the site topography as well as the existing well locations. The existing three monitoring wells were also utilized to identify the groundwater quality of the BEQ Hill. A total of six groundwater samples were collected from monitoring wells including three existing ones, and submitted to the laboratory for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) analysis. The groundwater levels ranged from 17.21 meters to 22.04 meters below groundwater surface during this RIFS.
The chemical analysis results for groundwater samples are generally far lower than the laboratory practical quantitation limit (PQL) except Chloroform and Toluene. The concentration of Chloroform has reported from 1ug/Liter (L) to 1.9 mg/L, and Toluene of 5.1 ug/L. Except those two chemicals, the reported concentrations are generally below the PQLs but provided as just estimation values or occasionally a false concentration associated with the method blank. The analytical data collected during this RI was used to prepare an environmental hazard evaluation (EHE) for the site sampled, which determined whether the contamination present at the site poses a significant long-term or “chronic” threat to human health and the environment.
The hazard analysis utilized conservative Environmental Screening Levels (ESLs) that were based upon published United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) toxicity factors, water standards and recently promulgated regional screening levels (RSLs) (Guam EPA, 2008). The contamination present at the BEQ Hill does not pose an imminent risk to human if left undisturbed. The screening does not identify potential hazards related to groundwater concentrations measured at the BEQ Hill site. Note that the risk-based screening levels do not consider the possibility of a trench/construction worker coming in direct contact with groundwater, in which case a health and safety plan would be necessary to minimize exposure.
With respect to the contaminant source removal, it is recommended that the waste burial cell be removed from the project site. In addition, annual or biannual groundwater sampling at the site is recommended to evaluate whether natural attenuation and contaminant degradation is occurring at the site.
Executive Summary: The US Army Corps of Engineers, Far East District (FED) conducted a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (RI/FS) at the Area 41 of Camp Carroll during February 2009 to March 2010. The RI at the site was conducted to better delineate the lateral extent of subsurface soil and groundwater contamination and the levels of chemicals of potential concern of the Area. The FS was also conducted to evaluate potential remedial alternatives for the site investigated.
All soil samples submitted to the analytical laboratory were analyzed for Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semi-VOCs, metals, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), organochlorinated pesticides (OC-Pesticides) and Dioxin-Furan. Groundwater samples were collected from groundwater monitoring wells as well as the supply wells, and analyzed for VOCs and/or OC-Pesticides. The analytical data collected during this RI was used to prepare an environmental hazard evaluation (EHE) for the site. The hazard analysis utilized an Environmental Screening Levels (ESLs) that were based upon published United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) toxicity factors (Guam EPA, 2008). The EHE determined the contamination present at the site poses a significant long-term or “chronic” threat to human health and the environment.
A total of eight chemicals from the subsurface soil exceeded the Tier 1 ESLs for future unrestricted land use: total petroleum tetrachloroethlyene (PCE), methylene chloride, 2-methlynaphthalene, naphthalene, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane (DDD) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). The TPH diesel also exceeded the Tier II screening level. A total of seven chemicals of VOCs and OC-Pesticides in groundwater samples were identified “exceeding” Tier I ESLs and six of those including PCE and trichloroethene (TCE) exceeded the Tier II screening level for “drinking water for human toxicity”. Groundwater is used as a source of drinking water at the installation; consequently, there are exposure pathways to potentially all installation personnel. Construction site workers would be directly exposed to the subsurface soil contamination if construction activities, such as trenching or foundation excavation, occur at the site. The presence of VOCs and OC-pesticides in subsurface soils represents an ongoing threat of contaminant migration to groundwater.
Groundwater at Camp Carroll is the source of drinking water for the installation. Consequently, it is recommended that the high concentration of VOCs and OC-Pesticide at the site subsurface be removed to prevent further leaching chemicals to the groundwater system. In addition, groundwater should be routinely tested and adequately treated prior to distribution to the buildings. Following removal of the contaminated soil, periodic monitoring of groundwater quality is recommended to evaluate the environmental condition of the site and determine if natural attenuation and contaminant degradation are occurring and contaminant concentration levels are improving.
What is clear from these documents is that Camp Carroll is severely polluted with multiple dump sites and USFK knew about it these past few years to include how it got polluted by the burying of chemicals on the camp back in the 1970′s. Here is an excerpt from the February 2011 document that shows USFK knew about the burial on the chemical drums on Camp Carroll starting back in 2004:
The BEQ Hill site is located on land acquired in 1959 from the Ministry of Defense of Korea. An aboveground water storage tank is located within the area of concern and an 8 to 10 meter high hill is located on the northwest side of the site. The north and east sides of the site are bounded by steep slopes that drop down approximately 20 meters over a horizontal distance of 60 meters. The Camp Carroll boundary is located approximately 50 meters north and east of the site. According to a former employee, Mr. Ku, Cha-Yong; drums, cans, bottles, and other containers of chemicals were buried in the area of the BEQ Hill sometime during the period of 1974 to 1975. According to Mr. Ku, a bulldozer was used to initially excavate a trench about 15 meters long, 9 meters wide, and about 6 meters deep. Mr. Ku recalled that five or six 5-ton trucks transported material for burial in the trench. The containers were dumped directly into the bottom of the trench to a height of about 1.2 meters. A fire ignited when a bulldozer attempted to spread material on the bottom of the trench. After the fire was extinguished, the trench was backfilled with soil. During a site visit in 1992, Woodward-Clyde personnel observed a slight surface depression in an area identified by Mr. Ku. No depression was observed by an FED geologist who visited the site on 14 August 2002 and 23 September 2008. A monitoring well (MW-22) was constructed at the site in 1992 by Woodward-Clyde Co.
2.3. Summary of Previous Investigations
The project site has been previously evaluated by FED for its environmental conditions during environmental site investigations as follows:
➢ Camp Carroll Baseline Groundwater Investigation. Woodward-Clyde Consultants in November 1992
➢ BEQ Hill, Land Farm, Bldg 326 and Bldg 565: Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) by FED in December 2004
➢ ESA to support the planned Build to Lease (BTL) Family Housing by FED, 2005.
During a site visit in 1992, Woodward-Clyde personnel observed a slight surface depression in an area. A monitoring well (MW-22) was constructed at the site in 1992 and the groundwater sampled. The analytical result for the groundwater sample indicated the presence of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethene (PCE), and 1,2-dichloroethylene (1,2-DCE) in the sample. In 2004, the FED assessed the site by geophysical survey and subsurface investigation to identify the waste burial cell and the environmental conditions. The FED reported that the size of waste buried cell was approximately 25 meters long, 14 meters wide and 6 meters deep. Laboratory analysis detected several volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in site soils. The predominant VOC detected was PCE, a solvent-related chemical. A few pesticide, metal, and dioxin/furan compounds were also detected in site soils. Several of the solvent-related VOCs do exceed the EPA guidance values for the threat of soil contamination to groundwater. These solvent-related VOCs were detected in a site groundwater monitoring well. Preliminary findings indicate that contamination from the waste buried cell at the site has been released to the underlying groundwater.
In 2005, the FED conducted the ESA around the BEQ Hill to support the planned Build to Lease (BTL) Family Housing at the site. The purpose of the 2005 ESA was to determine potential impact of contaminated groundwater on the proposed construction at the site. Three groundwater monitoring wells were installed at the proposed BTL site and water samples were collected for chemical analyses. The concentrations of VOCs and OC-pesticides were reported above the sample reporting limits.
The veterans that came forward said that the chemicals were buried in 1978 not in 1974 or 1975. Mr. Ku’s testimony shows that the burial of drums at Camp Carroll was going on even longer than previously suspected. Also something else I found very interesting was that he remembered that a fire was started by a bulldozer working on burying the chemicals. What is the danger to the Soldiers and civilians working and living around Camp Carroll from these drums burning these chemicals?
The documents also show that PCE was detected in the water supply underneath Camp Carroll. PCE is used primarily in dry cleaning so I wonder if their was on-post dry cleaner on Camp Carroll that used the ditch that was dug in 1978 as an opportunity to dispose of his PCE chemicals? It will also be interesting to see if there is anyway that the PCE detected in the Waegwan water supply can be linked to Camp Carroll or not? Does anyone know enough about soil contamination to know if there is way to confirm if the contamination came from Camp Carroll because I could easily see a local dry cleaner in Waegwan dumping his chemicals in the ground as well?
Something else that was unclear to me reading these documents was whether people on Camp Carroll were drinking contaminated water? The reports say that Camp Carroll’s water supply does come from ground water underneath the camp, but does the treatment process of the water remove these chemicals that have the contaminated the water supply? This is pretty big news if USFK knew servicemembers were drinking contaminated water on Camp Carroll and did nothing about it. That is why I think that whatever well is being used for drinking ground water may not have been polluted yet by the ground water underneath BEQ Hill. Once again maybe someone with soil contamination expertise can provide some clarification on this.
Regardless this all not good news for USFK because they have known about the soil contamination since 2004 and if you read the documents the USACE provided a number of options to clean up the pollution that had the high costs of clean up listed as a disadvantage of many of the options, which is probably why USFK decided not to clean it up after learning about it. Interestingly one of the options given was to do nothing and one of the disadvantages of this option was that “public acceptance is low due to perception of “do-nothing” option.” That is now exactly where USFK now finds itself with public outrage that will probably grow after the Korean public has learned that USFK has decided to do nothing about this pollution until now. USFK to its credit has stated that they will clean up any pollution found at Camp Carroll, but it seems like this should have been something that was done long ago.
6:03 pm on June 29th, 2011 1
Which toxic dump sites should be cleaned up? All of them, you say? Sure. Who should pay for the cleanups? Who decides what order they are to be cleaned?
If the site is overseas (say, Korea, for example), does the SOFA agreement describe responsibilities?
Who is responsible for decisions made by people long dead? And with the number of Koreans involved with US base operations in Korea, how many of these decisions were made by Koreans? Should the Korean Government be at least partly financially responsible for the choices and actions of Korean citizens?
This is by no means an easy topic to do anything with except create Nork propaganda.
7:17 pm on June 29th, 2011 2
RE a Dry Cleaner at Carroll. I was there 85-89 and there was in fact a dry cleaners across the street from the MP barracks next to the Steam & Cream and barber shop.
12:42 am on June 30th, 2011 3
#1 There have been fairly recurrent SOFA negociations over these matters – which is one reason why small cases have been blown up by the media and less frequently the government.
Also, the Stars and Stripes has reported before how some of the US bases, especially in the cities, are ones taken over from the Japanese.
The details on these cases is important, but it often gets lost in the noise when these cases heat up…
4:55 am on June 30th, 2011 4
Did they actually have a dry cleaning plant there – or was it just a place for dropoff / pickup?
5:41 am on June 30th, 2011 5
Good point Guitard. I know they had dryers and people ironing, I recall seeing that. But, I don’t know for a fact that they had dry cleaning machines.
6:43 am on June 30th, 2011 6
@1 – At Camp Carroll the pollution was caused by extremely negligent behavior by USFK servicemembers over a pro-longed period back in the 1970′s. No one has made any allegations that Korean civilians were involved in this dumping at Camp Carroll. USFK leadership should have cleaned this mess up when they first learned about it in 1979 and conducted the investigation that dug up the barrels. If they conducted the clean up back then it would have been cheaper and avoided the problems that the current USFK leadership currently finds itself in.
The decision not to clean up the mess is even more troubling when you consider that ground water under the camp is used by the personnel that live and work at Camp Carroll. You would think USFK leadership would have wanted to clean up the mess to protect the servicemembers that are on the camp.
6:59 am on June 30th, 2011 7
Slightly off-topic; but worth a peek: http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=10150214272924223&oid=78701778561&comments
’79 was on Jimmy Carter’s watch (and how he lacked any concern for Korea)… I remember the apathy and low morale of the USAF at that time (no love from White House or Congress and the civilian population still thought we were the “baby-killers” John Kerry called the military during the Vietnam War)… I’m sure the Army was feeling it too…
Poor leadership => Poor morale => Poor results in ANY organization, religious, secular, government, civilian, etc.
2:39 pm on June 30th, 2011 8
These issues are being brought up by the Korean left because of the Korean Presidential elections next year.
4:51 pm on June 30th, 2011 9
“At Camp Carroll the pollution was caused by extremely negligent behavior by USFK servicemembers over a pro-longed period back in the 1970′s.”
Is that in relation to environmental protection standards of the day – or – in relation to those of today?
That is a core issue in why the Korean media and society’s past handling of these issues has been wrong: You can’t take how we think and handle the environment today and project it back 40 or 50 years and raise holy hell about it.
Heck, I’ve even seen the Korean press get worked up over news that USFK violated its own environmental standards when those standards were higher than what the Korean government set out officially (on paper).
USFK should have a system of pollution prevention, checks, and clean up – which it does – and environmental cleanup should be done when necessary. It is complicated by how to do it and who pays what between the Korean and US governments, but it should be done (and it is).
What shouldn’t happen is the disproportionate hyping of the environmental situation in Korean society that throws all context out the window….which we have seen happen on several occasionas since the 1990s.
6:01 pm on June 30th, 2011 10
From the testimony of the preventive medicine specialist who was involved in the clean up we already know that the people who buried these chemicals were negligent. What they did in the 70′s as the preventive medicine specialist said was taking the easy way out instead of doing the paperwork to properly turn the chemicals in to be disposed of. The USFK leadership did do a clean up to remove the chemicals drums but did not remove the contaminated soil which was probably cost decision especially with the uncertainty of US forces remaining in Korea at the time.
8:06 pm on June 30th, 2011 11
Why are you so quick to jump to this conclusion?
As USinKorea eluded – the way people thought about and handled these things back in the 1970s was completely different than it is now. Think about Germany back then – when people joked about being able to walk on the water in the rivers because they were so polluted. Or stories about the rivers catching on fire. The water quality of American rivers and lakes wasn’t much better.
It was a different time and attitudes were completely different.
As an analogy – you could smoke in your Army office back in the 1970s (even into the 1980s) – and no one would say a thing. Try doing that now.
The reason they didn’t remove the contaminated soil could easily have been because it just wasn’t considered important or necessary – at that time.
And I seriously doubt anyone on the Korean or US sides were up in arms about it – at that time.
9:03 pm on June 30th, 2011 12
For me, to understand these cases, I would need to see documentation of regulations from whatever time period the original contamination took place. Because, times have changed so much, it is too easy to apply current environmentalism to the past, even when you are trying to avoid it.
I guess this also applies for me less strenously to the item of clean up in contemporary times — like USFK not cleaning up the problem when discovered a few years ago.
I think USFK should have clean up the stuff within reason.
But, in terms of outrage (and future lawsuits), what were the related provisions in the SOFA and other agreements with the Korean government concerning that type of contamination?
It’s too easy to say, “USFK should obviously clean up the whole thing and pay for it all.” which is usually the implication in the (Korean) outrage that pollution can be found on USFK bases.
But, every time I’ve dug into one of these issues, it is much more complicated than that.
It would be nice if the Korean government and USFK could rationally work through these issues cases and get the clean up done in a timely manner.
9:59 pm on July 1st, 2011 13
Now, we are talking some facts. As I said earlier, most military bases have some kind of contamination. In US there are thousands of formerly used installations. US DoD determined to investigate and cleanup all of them with tax money. To me, they are doing great for cleanup; I have seen those reports. But I know those reports for Camp Carol are only icebergs; sources are not clearly identified; few samplings are way below the standard. Washington knows the cost to cleanup and consequences to other foreign countries. Again, USFK does not know how to respond to the fact and Korean. My question is, “Will USFK hide facts to GIs and their families?”
11:21 pm on July 1st, 2011 14
Yappari…
8:29 am on July 4th, 2011 15
While I have read so many of these reportd and remain concerned for any impact on Korea’s natural resources, I find a striking lack of comparison data available in public forums. There are plenty of areas with no US military presence where I have seen horrible land preservation arrangements….I would like to see some groundwater studies from the greater Daegu area where there is not a US presence for comparison…. I know here in seoul where we have SH** river running through our base that originates off-base and is horribly polluted, I would like to see a comparison of pollution values from off-base to on-base!!! We accept these ratings in accordance with US standards, but in actuality when you compare them to the current Korean standards, our areas are clean as can be in theri rating system, so why all the fuss??
9:00 am on July 4th, 2011 16
That’s a rhetorical question…right?
10:28 am on July 4th, 2011 17
I wonder what we’d find in the soil around any gas station in Korea?
10:33 am on July 4th, 2011 18
Or even the new Inchon Airport?
12:11 am on July 6th, 2011 19
Well. Who cares in Korea. They only care money, and export.