US military base in Japan reveals PCBs and Agent Orange contaminations
24 March 2014, 21:01 -- The US kept polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and Agent Orange on Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The use of these substances has taken its toll on the health of the land, families stationed on the base and Okinawa citizens. The Pentagon is notoriously secretive as far as military pollution on Okinawa is concerned. It allows neither the Japanese government nor Okinawa officials to conduct environmental checks on its installations. However, two US government documents lift the veil of secrecy from the issue.
The first document is a leaked 1987 report on contamination of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at Kadena. It offers a glimpse into how US forces attempt to limit PR damage from on-base accidents.
The second document is a recently-revealed ruling by the Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA).The document shows that the US government has awarded damages to a former marine whose health was damaged transporting Agent Orange to a warehouse on Kadena Air Base in the 1960s. The ruling comes less than a year after the U.S. government released a report stating that the Vietnam War defoliant was never on the island.
According to the documents, base officials discovered the pollution following a November 1986 accident in which 20 gallons (76 liters) of oil spilled from an electrical transformer at an open storage area within Kadena Air Base. Subsequent environmental tests conducted by a military laboratory in the US revealed in March 1987 that the spilled oil contained PCBs at a concentration of 214 parts per million (ppm) - but the soil was contaminated at 2290ppm. A second round of tests, returned in October 1987, showed soil contamination of 5535ppm.
The cited results of both the soil and oil tests are far above international safe levels. For example, at the time the pollution was discovered, Japan's clean-up standard for PCBs in soil stood at 3ppm; whereas in the U.S., it was 25ppm. Today, Japan's regulations are much stricter - as low as 0.03ppm - and the U.S. allows the 25ppm level only for industrial areas.
The cases were kept a secret as they could damage the standing of Governor Nishime Junji, a supporter of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, in the run-up to prefectural assembly elections in June 1988. Additionally, the clean-up costs at the contaminated storage could reach $190,000, approximately $400,000 in today's terms.
However, under the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), the U.S. military in Japan is not responsible for the remediation of any pollution within its bases, nor is it obliged to allow Japanese officials access to its installations to conduct environmental tests.
In December, US Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, announced the two countries would negotiate an environmental stewardship agreement to supplement the existing SOFA with the "shared goal of reducing impact to Japan's precious natural landscape." The first round of talks between the Japanese and US governments took place on February 11 in Washington with further discussions planned for Tokyo in the near future.
Kadena Air Base is a United States Air Force base in the towns of Kadena and Chatan and the city of Okinawa, in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Kadena Air Base is the hub of US airpower in the Pacific, and is home to the USAF's 18th Wing and associated units. During the Vietnam War, Kadena Air Base - the installation cited in the winning ruling as the location of the Agent Orange warehouse - was one of the Pentagon's primary launch pads for the conflict.
Voice of Russia, japanfocus.org
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