Hundreds of billions of VND to clean up dioxin in hot areas

Some hot areas of toxic chemicals used by the US during the Vietnam War will be dealt with completely with a budget of hundreds of billions of dong.

Locations of US military / dioxin concentrations in some Vietnamese airports have extremely high dioxin concentrations in soil (Photo: DownTheRoad)

According to Dr. Nguyen Tien Dung, Deputy Chief of the National Steering Committee to overcome the consequences of chemical toxins used by the US during the Vietnam War (Steering Committee 33) said hot spots will be cleaned up from now on. By 2010, Da Nang airport area, Bien Hoa airport and Phu Cat airport will be built.

These airports were previously used by the US military as a place to store toxic chemicals / dioxin.

Dioxin concentrations in these areas are still high and very high, even up to thousands of ppt (short for part per trillion - parts per trillion), while the permitted concentration in US agricultural land is only 1,000ppt.

Disinfection work was assigned to the Chemical Command, Ministry of Defense. It is known that scientists at the Chemical Command have completed the State-level scientific project on the research of optimal technology to treat toxic / dioxin chemicals in hot spots.

Under the positive landfill method, hot spot areas will be dug out of the surrounding area. Then scientists use a native microorganism capable of eating toxic chemicals and releasing non-toxic substances.

Combined with microbiological measures is a chemical measure and a coating of bentonite, a variable mineral in Vietnam. This bentonite coating, with the ability to expand when it meets water and clay-like properties, does not allow the toxin to penetrate into the environment while still enabling the biochemical process to decompose the toxin taking place inside. .

The first hot spot surveyed by the Chemical Command was Bien Hoa and Dong Nai airports. After completing the budget estimate and submitting it to the Government from this survey, the cleanup work will officially proceed from the end of this year or at the beginning of the year.

While waiting for the Ministry of Defense to build an implementation plan, the need to do it right now is to isolate the hot spots, Dr. Dung said. First, it is necessary to accurately map areas of dioxin contamination in three hot areas. Relocate people (if any) from contaminated areas.

Next, it is necessary to dig ditches, build surrounding walls to limit the spread of dioxin to neighboring areas. Also according to Dr. Dung, besides isolating and disinfecting hot areas, it is also necessary to quickly develop standards to allow dioxin levels in the soil.

TS.BS Le Ke Son, Chief of Office of Steering Committee 33 said that dioxin concentration in Da Nang airport is the highest (with samples up to hundreds of thousands of ppt), then Bien Hoa airport and Phu airport Sand.

Vietnamese scientists have studied and discovered changes in flora, terrestrial and aquatic animals in hot areas and surrounding areas. The results showed that the situation of illness and birth defects in hot areas is higher than in other regions.

Also according to Dr. Son, in hot areas, recent studies have identified high dioxin concentrations in animals living in mud layers of nearby lakes. Therefore, people in these areas are advised not to eat eel, mud, snails, crabs that live in mud in these lakes and do not eat the fat of poultry such as chickens and ducks because dioxins often accumulate in Adipose tissue of these animals.

Thuy Ly