Excessive levels of hazardous chemicals detected in U.S. military camp

CHILGOK, South Korea, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- Excessive levels of hazardous chemical compounds have been detected from groundwater inside a U.S. military base in South Korea where drums of Agent Orange are suspected to have been buried decades ago, a joint investigation team said Friday. However, the team said no traces of the controversial burial of the defoliant were found at Camp Carroll in Chilgok, some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The joint South Korea-U.S. team has been conducting tests of water and soil samples from the camp after some U.S. veterans claimed that they had buried drums of Agent Orange when they served there in 1978. Releasing its test results, the team said trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE), both health-threatening solvents believed to cause cancers, were detected from some of the underground wells they dug in the camp at more than average levels of 0.03 milligrams per liter. Some of the water samples recorded a PCE contamination level of up to 0.497 milligram per liter while the level of TCE reached as high as 0.743 mg/L, the investigation team noted. The investigators said they could not confirm how the TCE and PCE contamination happened. The team, however, said they did not find any signs that can prove the claim by Steve House and other U.S. veterans that they had helped bury drums of Agent Orange. "We could not find any sign of a massive amount of metal materials buried there," a member of the team said, requesting that he not be named, dismissing House' previous claim that about 250 drums were dumped there. The announcement came ahead of the investigators' final release of their test of soil samples slated for late August. Agent Orange is a toxic chemical that was widely used to clear leaves from trees and plant life during the Vietnam War. The cancer-causing chemical was allegedly sprayed in the 1960s around the inter-Korean Demilitarized Zone to thwart North Korean infiltrations. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.