[CPEO-MEF] Tok (AK) search for Agent Orange delayed

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Tok search for Agent Orange delayed 

By DIANA CAMPBELL 
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK)
January 5, 2005

A disagreement between a federal agency and a private landowner over who
will pay to move construction equipment is holding up the search for
barrels of Agent Orange possibly buried in Tok.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials said they aren't authorized to
use federal funds for that type of work.

A spokesman for the landowner, Nugget Construction, said the company
shouldn't have to bear the cost, about $3,000.

"It still comes out of our pocket," said John Smithson, construction
manager for Nugget Construction. "We would have to pay guys, actually
write them a paycheck." 

The barrels have been buried for about 30 years, if a story told to
government officials by John Erickson of Hoonah is true. Erickson said
he was ordered to bury six barrels of what he believed to be Agent
Orange, a powerful herbicide, while he was a working for a military
contractor. Some batches of the chemical contain dioxin, a deadly toxin
believed to cause cancer, birth defects and Type II diabetes.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~2635674,00.html

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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