Shimizu to Clean Up Dioxin-Tainted Soil at Vietnam Airport

July 11, 2018

Hanoi- Major Japanese general contractor Shimizu Corp. has said that it will conduct an experiment to clean up dioxin-tainted soil at Bien Hoa Airport in southern Vietnam, where U.S. forces stored defoliants during the 1955-1975 Vietnam War.

In collaboration with Vietnam's Ministry of National Defense, Shimizu will start in November the construction of a plant for decontaminating soil at the premises of the airport. The decontamination experiment will be carried out for three and a half months from January 2019.

Shimizu hopes to help reduce the impacts of the problem that is affecting not only generations who experienced the war but also their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, company officials said.

The amount of dioxin-tainted soil at the airport, used as a U.S. base during the war, stands at some 850,000 tons, one of the largest among sites polluted with the toxic substance from the defoliants in Vietnam, according to Shimizu.

The experiment is part of the Vietnamese government's process of choosing a technology for purifying soil at the airport.

Shimizu began an indoor decontamination test in 2015. Based on the result of the test, it signed a basic agreement with the ministry in October 2017 to conduct the experiment at the airport.

Necessary equipment and materials will be transported from Japan. Shimizu will undertake the construction, and the operations and management of the decontamination plant, which is capable of processing up to 40 tons of soil per hour.

It can remove over 90 pct of dioxin in soil, and nearly 70 pct of the decontaminated soil can be reused, according to the company.

After confirming the effects from the experiment, Shimizu aims to participate in soil-purifying projects at the airport and in other contaminated areas in Vietnam. Jiji Press