Joint probe team fails to find metal drums under Camp Carroll's helipad

(ATTN: ADDS Steve House's South Korean visit in last 4 paras) SEOUL, July 20 (Yonhap) -- A South Korea-U.S. joint team failed to find any signs of metal drums under the helipad of a U.S. military base in southeastern South Korea, officials said Wednesday, casting doubts over allegations that a toxic defoliant was buried there in the 1970s. The latest finding came after the same joint team said earlier this month that through a geophysical survey they had detected what could be metallic materials buried under the heliport located at Camp Carroll in Chilgok, some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The joint team began its investigation in early June after three retired United States Forces Korea veterans revealed in a May media interview that in 1978 they helped bury hundreds of drums containing chemicals suspected to be the cancer-causing defoliant Agent Orange. In its latest examination, the joint investigation team cored 40 spots of the helipad in order to secure soil samples for toxic chemical tests, and in the process, no signs of metallic drums were detected, the government officials said. "The team extracted samples from the ground reaching down to the bedrock from the 40 sites and no particular signs were detected," an official said, indicating that the containers are unlikely to be under the helipad zone. In the coring process that drilled the ground until the bedrock was touched, the team could have found or at least detected the massive collection of drums if there were any, the official noted. The team has also conducted a geophysical survey, including ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity, on the other two areas of Camp Carroll. If signs of "anomalies" are found in the survey, the team will core the areas, according to the official. The investigators are scheduled to make public results of their examination of water pollution in the camp late this month while the results of defoliant and heavy metal contamination are slated for late August. The May revelation by U.S. veterans sparked public fury here over possible environmental degradation inflicted by American forces, prompting civil activists and Chilgok villagers to strongly demand authorities disclose the truth. In late May, the U.S. military conceded the burial took place but argued that the wastes were removed in the late 1970s and taken out of the country. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice. Meanwhile, one of the three veteran revelators is planning to visit South Korea later this week as part of his efforts to add testimonies to the Agent Orange waste burial. Steve House, who first divulged the U.S. military's alleged burial of the defoliant at Camp Carroll, will arrive in the country Sunday afternoon, according to a civil group coping with American forces' environmental pollution. House plans to attend a National Assembly meeting to provide testimony to lawmakers on July 24 or 25 and visit Camp Carroll on July 27 in order to personally point out the area where he claims the military dumped the waste, according to the group. "The U.S. 8th Army has yet to grant permission for House's visit," an official of the group said. "If the army disapproves, he will go to a nearby hill to point out the burial site."