About Agent Orange

Mitigation Measures

Though having long equivocated on the issue of Agent Orange’s environmental and human health impact, the U.S. is now cooperating with Viet Nam on Dioxin contamination cleanup efforts.

The U.S. and Vietnam finally were able to break through their impasse in 2006 when President George W. Bush visited Viet Nam. In the joint statement with Prime Minister Nguyen Minh Triet the two countries agreed “that further joint efforts to address the environmental contamination near former Dioxin storage sites would make a valuable contribution to the continued development of their bilateral relationship.” While not addressing the issue of disabilities related to Agent Orange, the statement publicly acknowledged for the first time that Dioxin contamination was a bilateral issue of concern to both nations. This opened the door for the U.S. Congress to start allocating funds to address Agent Orange’s impacts in Viet Nam. The first allocation came in May 2007 when $3 million was allocated for the “remediation of Dioxin contaminated sites in Vietnam, and to support health programs in communities near those sites.”

Over the years, U.S. aid has increased to support the cleanup efforts of designated hotspots contaminated with Dioxin. This financial commitment has also gone toward programs assisting Vietnamese with disabilities who lived in the heavily sprayed regions or near known Dioxin hotspots.

In the early 2000s, the Vietnamese government prioritized the Da Nang, Phu Cat and Bien Hoa bases for Dioxin remediation. An estimated total of $58.7 million—$250 per cubic meter of soil and sediment—was needed on this operation, according to the Global Environmental Facility of the United Nations Development Programme. This estimate turned out to be very low as more information about the extent of the contamination and remediation costs were discovered.

The Ford Foundation, followed by the EPA, was the first to get involved in resolving the issue of Dioxin contamination at the Da Nang base. Ford funded the installation of a cement cap and sedimentation tank that would prevent the Dioxin-laden sediment from leaching in the runoff into Sen Lake in the northern end of the airport and further contaminating the site. In addition, a high wall was built around the base to keep people from fishing or gathering lotus from the contaminated lake and to contain Dioxin accumulation in the food chain.

Da Nang Airbase

In 2009, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded a contract to CDM, a U.S. engineering and construction firm, to work with Hatfield Consultants to determine the extent of contamination at the Da Nang base, with the goal of a cleanup plan. About a year later in June, USAID released the Environmental Assessment of the Da Nang base. It was determined that in-pile thermal desorption (IPTD) was the most cost effective, safe and efficient method of lowering the Dioxin-contaminated soil to less than 1,000 ppt and the sediment to less than 150 ppt. 

The U.S. committed to funding the cleanup of the Dioxin contamination at the Da Nang site and in 2011 USAID contracted the U.S.-based company TerraTherm to implement the IPTD process. The process took 7 years and entailed building a 70-meter wide by an approximately 100-meter long facility to hold the contaminated soil. Over 1,200 heating units were inserted into the soil in order to raise its temperature to 335 degrees Celsius which broke down the Dioxin molecules into harmless particles. In November 2018, the process of treating 90,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil and remediating the airbase was completed. The cost, a total of $116 million.

The Vietnamese Military, working with the United Nations Development Program-Global Environmental Facility, removed 7,500 cubic meters of contaminated sediment and soils at the Phu Cat air base and placed it in a secure landfill in 2012. The $5 million project also built a hydraulic barrier at the Pace Ivy area of the Bien Hoa air base to reduce the further contamination during the rainy seasons.   

Bien Hoa Airbase

 

In April 2019, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy and eight other U.S. Senators officially inaugurated  the joint U.S.-Vietnam project to clean-up the Bien Hoa Airbase. Bien Hoa was a major site of the U.S. Air Force’s Operation Ranch Hand. Over four million gallons of Agent Orange—as well as Agents Purple, Pink and Green, some of the more heavily Dioxin-contaminated tactical herbicides, and Agents White and Blue—were stored there. 

An Environmental Impact Study found vast areas of the base were heavily contaminated with Dioxin, approximately 500,000 cubic meters of soil and sediment. The USAID and the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense signed a five-year, non-refundable $183 million aid agreement for this work at Bien Hoa.  The U.S. has committed $30 million a year over the next 10 years for the remediation work at Bien Hoa, $15 million a year which will for the first time be allocated out of the U.S. Department of Defense budget.  

 

In 2020, the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense began the process of remediating 35,000 cubic meters of contaminated soils at the former A So U.S. Special Forces base in A Luoi, Thua Thien Hue Province near the Lao border. The two-year project is expected to cost about $3 million. 

Continued Efforts and other hotspots

Little is known about the level of Dioxin contamination at the other two dozen designated hotspots throughout southern Vietnam. Additional funding is needed to conduct testing at these other hotspots, some of which are active military bases, to develop and implement plans as required. The Vietnamese government now is equipped with the sufficient resources to do necessary testing and conduct needed mitigation measures. The Vietnamese government hopes to complete all cleanup projects of hotspots by 2030. 

In addition to former military bases in Vietnam, there are other hotspots throughout the world where herbicides used in Operation Ranch Hand were stored, used and tested. Potential hotspots have been found at the former bases used by the U.S. in Thailand. There was a downed spray plane in Laos believed to have carried a full load of Agent Orange; but information about the tactical use of herbicides in Laos and whether herbicides were stored there or not, is still classified. Allegedly, an Air America aircraft led a small spraying effort in 1968 in central Laos.

Many of the hotspots in the U.S. where Agent Orange was manufactured, used or stored are now designated Superfund sites. Newark Bay; the Saginaw area in Michigan; Gulfport, Mississippi; Nitro, West Virginia; and Times Beach, Missouri are just some of these locations. 

Major cleanup efforts have not yet begun, and there are numerous extant lawsuits against the U.S. government and chemical companies contracted by the military.