S Korea investigates new allegation of chemical dumping by U.S. military

South Korea has launched an on-site inspection of a former U.S. military base suspected to be another burial site of large amounts of chemicals by the U.S. military in the 1960s, local media reported Wednesday.

An investigation team of environmental experts and officials from related ministries, including the Ministry of Defense, has been dispatched to Camp Mercer in Bucheon, just west of Seoul, to probe a new allegation of chemical dumping raised by a U.S. Army veteran.

Retired Master Sgt. Ray Bows wrote in his message posted on a website that U.S. troops buried "hundreds of gallons" of chemicals at Camp Mercer between 1963 and 1964, Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported.

"The team plans to review environmental data of the base and check areas where chemicals were suspected of being buried," an official from the defense ministry was quoted by Yonhap as saying.

The new allegation came as South Korea and the United States began a joint investigation into the alleged burial of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange by the U.S. military at Camp Carroll in Chilgok, some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, in 1978.

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