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Author: Trove of US documents on toxic substances in Okinawa may help veterans' claims
Author: Trove of US documents on toxic substances in Okinawa may help veterans’ claims
By MATTHEW M. BURKE | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: November 23, 2020
CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A Welsh journalist in Japan has released a trove of U.S. government documents regarding pollutants at U.S. bases in the Pacific in hopes they will aid veterans seeking compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for a variety of service-related ailments.
Jon Mitchell, 46, an investigative journalist and contracted correspondent for the Japan Times and Okinawa Times who lives in Yokohama, released over a dozen documents that he uncovered while writing “Poisoning the Pacific: The U.S. Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons and Agent Orange,” which was published by Rowman & Littlefield in October.
The document release on Rowman & Littlefield’s website for “Poisoning the Pacific” caps off more than a decade of reporting by Mitchell. The documents cover the storage and leakage of chemical weapons, lead in the drinking water at schools on Kadena Air Base and “forever chemicals” like PFOS contamination at Kadena and Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Mitchell’s previous work has been used by American veterans seeking VA compensation, something he said he hopes will continue with the current crop of records.
Jon Mitchell, 46, an investigative journalist and contracted correspondent for the Japan Times and Okinawa Times who lives in Yokohama, released over a dozen documents that he uncovered while writing “Poisoning the Pacific: The U.S. Military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons and Agent Orange,” which was published by Rowman & Littlefield in October.
The document release on Rowman & Littlefield’s website for “Poisoning the Pacific” caps off more than a decade of reporting by Mitchell. The documents cover the storage and leakage of chemical weapons, lead in the drinking water at schools on Kadena Air Base and “forever chemicals” like PFOS contamination at Kadena and Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Mitchell’s previous work has been used by American veterans seeking VA compensation, something he said he hopes will continue with the current crop of records.
More: https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/author-trove-of-us-documents-on-toxic-substances-in-okinawa-may-help-veterans-claims-1.653182
Coincidentally Arirang News on youtube reported today that the US had returned 8 bases/facilities to South Korea leaving the issue of the cleanup costs of extensive toxic environmental pollution left behind by US forces unresolved. The US has been stonewalling the cleanup issue at bases in South Korea for years. Facilities at Dongduchan, Uijongbu, and Yongsan, among others were part of the return.
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