I recently wrote a post on doxin pollution in the Willamette River watershed linked to herbicide spraying in the Douglas-fir forests of Western Oregon, and to chlorinated effluents from pulp and paper mills. One of the unconscionable and shocking things I learned in this research was that the U.S. Army had stopped using Agent Orange in Vietnam in 1970 because it contained 2,4,5-T (which, in turned, contained the highly toxic dioxin 2,3,7,8-TCDD). However, the U.S. Forest Service continued to use 2,4,5-T in the Douglas-fir country of Oregon until the mid-1980s.
Oregon and Vietnam certainly weren't the only places where Agent Orange (a mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) was used, as the brief video below outlines:
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James, thank you for finding this. This is outrageous that agent orange was used in our own forests.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jim. Yeah, it is outrageous!
ReplyDeleteCarol Van Strum's book A Bitter Fog provides details of the spraying, and citizen efforts to make it stop.