USAID to Work with US Firm on Dioxin Cleanup Project in Vietnam Danang

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has signed a contract with U.S. TerraTherm, Inc. to conduct a dioxin remediation in Vietnam’s central city of Danang, the project marks Washington’s first involvement in cleaning up dioxin residue left from the Vietnam War. This is part of the $41-million project titled Environmental Remediation of Dioxin Contamination at Danang Airport jointly done through 2016 by the USAID and the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense.TerraTherm will use In-Pile Thermal Desorption (IPTD) technology to treat “the herbicide Agent Orange (AO) in areas of Danang airport where it was stored and handled during the U.S.-Vietnam War,” the U.S. embassy in Hanoi said in a press release.Using the IPTD technology, the project focuses on remediation of roughly 73,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil and sediment at the airport.The IPTD approach will involve the construction of a covered, above-ground, insulated structure that will heat up each batch of contaminated soil over several months to destroy the dioxin.The method will enable the central city of Danang to have 29 hectares of clean soil for economic purposes and erase the risks of dioxin contamination for residents living around the airport.This project is among many AO-related projects funded by the U.S. government since 2000 in an effort to mitigate AO-linked consequences, which have lasted to the third generation among Vietnamese victims. It is estimated that Vietnam has around 4.8 million people vulnerable to AO/dioxin. (vietnam.usembassy.gov Feb 19)