The US began a landmark project Thursday to clean up a dangerous chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange,50 years after American planes first sprayed it on Vietnams jungles to destroy enemy cover. Dioxin,which has been linked to cancer,birth defects and other disabilities,will be removed from the site of a former US air base in Danang in central Vietnam. The effort is seen as a long-overdue step toward removing a thorn in relations between the former foes nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended. We are both moving earth and taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our past, US Ambassador David Shear said. I look forward to even more success to follow. The $43 million joint project with Vietnam is expected to be completed in four years on the 19-hectare contaminated site,now an active Vietnamese military base near Danangs commercial airport. The US has been quibbling for years over the need for more scientific research to show that the herbicide caused health problems among Vietnamese. It has given about $60 million for environmental restoration and social services in Vietnam since 2007,but this is its first direct involvement in cleaning up dioxin,which has seeped into Vietnams soil and watersheds for generations. Shear added the US is planning to evaluate whats needed for remediation at the former Bien Hoa air base in southern Vietnam,another Agent Orange hotspot. The work begins as Vietnam and the US forge closer ties to boost trade and counter Chinas rising influence in the disputed South China Sea thats believed rich in oil and natural resources. The US says protecting peace and freedom of navigation in the sea is in its national interest. The Danang site is closed to the public. Part of it consists of a dry field where US troops once stored and mixed the defoliant before it was loaded onto planes. The area is ringed by tall grass,and a faint chemical scent could be smelled Thursday. The area also includes lakes and wetlands dotted with pink lotus flowers where dioxin has seeped into soil and sediment over decades. The US military dumped some 75 million liters of Agent Orange and other herbicides on about a quarter of former South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971,decimating about 2 million hectares of forest roughly the size of Massachusetts.
