Placido Salazar

psalazar9@satx.rr.com
Please note: This was sent out in 2010, but the cover-up continues, simply
because the public (just as many Vietnam Veterans) does not know, or fully
realize, about the deadly effects of these deadly chemicals. Unless public
pressure is applied on government representatives, the concern for the health of
future generations slowly disappears. What surprises me is that some
politicians DO live in that area; yet, they are apparently doing NOTHING about
the situation. I guess they do not realize that this can also affect their own
present family and for several generations to come.

Placido Salazar, USAF Retired Vietnam Veteran

From: Placido Salazar [psalazar9@satx.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 10:52 PM
To: psalazar9@satx.rr.com
Subject: Emailing: Agent Orange not stored at Kelly.htm
Kelly (AFB) was not a manufacturing site for Agent Orange, he said. It came
through Kelly but never used a manufacturing component, he said of some
herbicides common to Agent Orange. And - Although there was contamination
in the area, there was no risk to human health or the environment, Perez said.
Is that like being a little-bit pregnant? These chemicals were reportedly transported
to a business on Ackerman Road on the Eastside of San Antonio and sold to other city
governments (as herbicides). The MSDS for Agent Orange says that there is no safe
level for dioxin, nor for Arsenic (chemicals in Agent Orange).

Placido Salazar, USAF Retired Vietnam Veteran


keyword/search term
( ) mySA ( ) Web Search by YAHOO! ( ) Yellow Pages
YOUR PICS SUBMIT STORIES CALENDAR TV MOVIES GARAGE SALES
CLASSIFIEDS REAL ESTATE AUTOS JOBS COUPONS
BULVERDE| HI LL COUNTRY| NORTH| NORTH CENTRAL| NORTHWEST| NORTHEAST| SOUTHSI DE| MI LI TARY|
OPI NI ON|
Agent Orange not stored at Kelly
By Tony Cant - Contributing Writer/Kelly Observer
Web Posted: 07/22/2010 12:00 AM CDT
Comments(25)
The deadly chemical dubbed Agent Orange used by the U.S. military during the
Vietnam War in herbicidal warfare and getting renewed media attention was
never stored at the former Kelly Air Force Base, local U.S. Air Force officials said.
A member of the community around the former base posed the question of past
storage of the herbicides and defoliants known as Agent Orange at the last
meeting of the Kelly Restoration Advisory Board (RAB). The meeting was staged
July 13 at the former base, now an 1,800-acre industrial park renamed Port San
Antonio.
The issue has gained renewed media attention in the wake of a United Nations $5
million Agent Orange cleanup project at a former U.S. air base in Vietnam. In a
telephone interview after the RAB meeting, Air Force Real Property Agency public
affairs officer Armando Perez said Kelly AFB was not a storage area for the
chemical agent, although some of its herbicide ingredients were once stored at
the former base.
Kelly was not a manufacturing site for Agent Orange, he said. It came through
Kelly but never used a manufacturing component, he said of some herbicides
common to Agent Orange.
Military officials have previously confirmed 55-gallon drums of herbicides used in
Southeast Asia were stored in a 200-by-250-foot site at East Kelly from 1971 to
1974. But Perez provided a synopsis of various studies conducted over the years
clearing Kelly of harmful levels of related contaminants.
The RAB is a citizens' group overseeing ongoing chemical cleanup at the former
base of other contaminants, formed after the Base Realignment and Closure
Commission (BRAC) action to close Kelly.
Although its oversight encompasses groundwater and soil cleanup of industrial
solvents once widely used at the former base, Air Force officials, led by Kelly
AFB BRAC Environmental Coordinator Paul Carroll, sought to assure the
community member of the absence of harmful Agent Orange remnants at the site.
To that same end, Perez provided a synopsis of various studies over the years
that have cleared the former base of possessing Agent Orange remnants. Among
those past findings:
In 1982, the U.S. Air Force completed an assessment to identify all areas of the
former Kelly Air Force Base with potential to have a detrimental effect on human
health and the environment, placing the Kelly site where herbicides were store on
a list for further investigation.
Four years later, the U.S. Air Force conducted field investigations at the site,
analyzing specifically for components of Agent Orange. While some of the
detections were greater than the national background of eight parts per trillion for
dioxins, the concentrations were well below the residential risk level of one part
per billion established by the state of Texas, the military study concluded. Dioxin
is a chemical used in herbicide later linked to birth defects, cancer and other
ailments.
U.S. Air Force studies in 1990, 1991 and 1992 at the Kelly site yielded no
detection of pesticides or PCBs and no further action was required.
In 1994, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) issued
a requirement for additional sampling to confirm the concentrations. The U.S. Air
Force re-tested the site and determined soil contaminated with arsenic should be
removed.
The U.S. Air Force in 1997 excavated the top one foot of soil from the site,
removing a total 3,000 cubic yards of soil 1.2-acre site. The soil was disposed off
site in accordance with state regulations.
By September 1997, the Air Force received notification from the TNRCC that the
Kelly AFB site was approved for closure.
Although there was contamination in the area, there was no risk to human health
or the environment, Perez said.
Roughly 11 million gallons of Agent Orange so named for the 55-gallon,
orange-striped barrels in which it was stored was sprayed over roughly 10
percent of southern Vietnam between 1961-71, exposing up to 4.8 million
Vietnamese. More than 3 million Vietnamese continue to suffer from direct
exposure or subsequent birth defects attributable to exposure, according to a
2009 Congressional Research Service report.
Comments
Sign In | Register
Sign Out | My Profile
25 comment(s) on "Agent Orange not stored at Kelly"
Report abuse Report Abuse Report Abuse
Report item as: (required) X
[Obscenity/vulgarity \/]
Comment: (required)

[Report]
What's On Today By KATHRYN SHATTUCK 8 P.M. (CNN) TOXIC TOWNS, USA In a two-night investigation,
Dr. Sanjay Gupta (above right, with Harold Areno) examines the effects of exposure to toxic chemicals, which
some experts say begins even before birth, and the laws that are supposed to protect against it but that often
don't. The report starts with a look at two environmental activists. One is Wilma Subra, a chemist who has
developed a ''chemical fingerprint'' test to trace toxic byproducts from factories. The other is Dorothy Felix,
...
locknload7:52 PM
Report abuse Report Abuse Report Abuse
Report item as: (required) X
[Obscenity/vulgarity \/]
Comment: (required)

[Report]
I hope not for the sake of all those who work and did work there, this includes me.
View all comments
Ads by Yahoo



22PRI NT SHARE ON EMAI L E MA I L
NEWS
QUESTIONS LINGER OVER KELLY AFB CONTAMINATION EVEN
AFTER PROPERTY CHANGES HANDS

MICHAEL BARAJAS
Toxic Triangle resident Robert Alvarado with a map of the contaminated groundwater plume.

By Michael Barajas
PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 12, 2011
Purple wooden crosses that dot this south San Antonio community are starting to age, their
paint chipped and faded. Planted in lawns next to mailboxes, fences, and trees, they point to a
battle with cancer for someone inside.
For many here, the crosses are a sign of the lasting, toxic legacy of the now-shuttered Kelly Air
Force Base, which last year turned over its last patch of land to the Port San Antonio industrial
park. But even as some residents continue to blame the neighborhoods higher-than-normal
rates of cancer and birth defects on chemicals that seeped off base decades ago, the proof is
elusive. Kyle Cunningham, program manager at the Citys Public Center for Environmental
Health, said last week the agencys contract with the Air Force to study possible health effects
from Kelly contamination, a cooperative agreement struck in 2001, ended last month. All the
while, many in the neighborhood are critical that years of studies and reports have failed to
answer that one nagging question: whether the Air Force is responsible for the rash of illnesses
hammering the neighborhood.
Weve felt for a long time the contamination caused our sickness, says Robert Alvarado, a four-
decade veteran of this so-called Toxic Triangle. But apparently, well never prove it. Well be
dead and everyone will forget what caused all of this.
Decades have passed since base officials discovered toxic plumes in the areas groundwater, once
stretching underneath more than 20,000 nearby homes, many of which relied on private water
wells. For years, residents of this so-called Toxic Triangle, a residential area on the edge of the
former base, have hoped to prove the Air Force culpable, at least in part, for the neighborhoods
health woes, even as studies remained frustratingly inconclusive.
The Air Force started acknowledging decades ago groundwater contamination in and around the
base stemming from chemicals like trichloroethylene (TCE), a degreaser, and
tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a chemical used to strip paint, that were routinely dumped into open
pits. To date, a quarter billion dollars have been spent on cleanup at Kelly, shrinking the plumes
and scrubbing the former base, according to the Air Force Real Property Agency, which expects
to shell out another $32 million to complete the cleanup, a process that could drag on into at
least 2041, according to Air Force estimates.
Alvarado says he and others first suspected something was wrong at Kelly in the 1980s.
Neighbors routinely complained of foul odors coming from the Kelly grounds, he said. Some
even saw their fingernails turn black when they watered their lawns. Many of the
neighborhoods shallow groundwater wells that have since been plugged as a precaution were
used for drinking, washing cars, and watering gardens.
Base officials began to take note in the late 1980s when construction workers digging along
Quintana Road unearthed toxic fumes and collapsed. Officials later admitted that workers
drained chemical waste for years directly into the ground, or dumped it into nearby the nearby
creek. In addition to TCE and PCE, Kelly workers also handled and dumped dangerous toxins
like dichloroethene (DCE), benzene, vinyl chloride and thallium, known and suspected cancer-
causing agents.
1 2 3 4 Next Page
> Email Michael Barajas
11 Comments
San Antonio Current
Login

Sort by Best
Favorite
Share

Join the discussion


Jtellez57 3 years ago
There is a big gap in your chronology between 1917 and 1971. Have you visited the down town public library to review the
Kelly (and other Bases) environmental reports available to the public? - lots of good info. It's on the same floor as Texana.
o 1
o
o Reply
o
o Share

Robert Ruiz Jtellez57 3 years ago
sounds as if you have some awareness that comes from first hand knowledge.
Reply
Share


Jtellez57 Robert Ruiz 3 years ago
I wouldn't call it first hand but in the past I was involved in the clean-up at Kelly and among my tasks was
research of historic industrial processes at Kelly. Now these documents are just gathering dust as I haven't done
work at Kelly for years. Sometimes things just dropped in my lap like the copy of an Exp-News article from
Sept. 29, 1953 describing a chemical release into Leon Creek that was attributed to Kelly AFB.
Reply
Share


Robert Ruiz Jtellez57 3 years ago
Silent Spring?
Reply
Share
o

Glenn Wilkinson 2 years ago
now they have to trace the agent orange that drmo recieved in 1972 and resold my lake was sprayed with 450,000 gallons and my
family died which is murder drmo and its workers must go to jail
o Reply
o Share

Gwilkinson72555 2 years ago
i was the one \who started all of this filing complaints in 1989 turning in a sabine river for buying agent orange from kelly in july
of 1980 having seen 500 drums buried at 2103 ackerman road i still have all the IRP reports the inks which goverment workers
gave to me under the table alvin l young said no agent orange was ever burned off when in 1981 he destroyed agent orange
I do know that this is a landmark case because the air force have ammitted guilt and ammitted that agent orange indeed causes
ijury and death
o
Terry J DuBose 2 years ago
There are many places that Dioxin is an issue. One of the worst is south of Little Rock Air Force Base, in a wetlands area that
has signs in the water to this day that say Do not eat the fish from here. Or some paraphrase of that.
http://encyclopediaofarkansas....
In
1948, the Reasor Hill Company purchased the Artillery Booster Line No. 1, a 200-acre area that had been part of the AOP, and
began producing insecticides. In 1962, the plant was sold to Hercules Powder Company (later Hercules Inc.). Hercules continued
to make insecticides and also produced Agent Orange. Dioxin, a toxic byproduct of the Hercules production, accumulated in
waste on the site. From 1971 to 1976, Transval leased the site from Hercules and continued production methods with dioxin as a
part of the waste. In 1976, Transval was reorganized into Vertac, Inc., and the same products were produced, along with dioxin-
contaminated wastes.
In
1978, the National Dioxin Survey found high concentrations of dioxin in the waste sludge and dioxin contamination in wildlife
and fish as far as fifty miles downstream. In 1979, an investigation of practices at the plant was launched. Some efforts were
made by Vertac to improve its handling of waste, but in 1983, because of extensive contamination, the site was declared a
Superfund site. It was described as one of the worst dioxin-contaminated sites in the nation. Vertac continued to make some
improvements on the handling of the toxic waste but, in 1987, the company abandoned the site, leaving approximately 29,000
drums of dioxin-containing wastes.
see more
o Reply
o Share
o

HAR 3 years ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal...
Title: Parkinson's Linked to Solvent [TCE]
11-14-11
o
o
o Reply
o
o Share

Annalisa Peace 3 years ago
Excellent report. I served as the Community Co-Chair on the Kelly AFB RAB in the mid '90's, and was very frustrated with the
DOD's efforts to avoid responsibility for the contaminated groundwater and contamination in the neighborhoods. Keep up the
good work.
o
o Reply
o
o Share

Greg M Schwartz 3 years ago
This article should include a link to the Crime Scene Cleanup story I wrote for the Current two years ago, in which I uncovered
the biggest conspiracy in San Antone. Too bad hardly anyone gave a damn:
http://www2.sacurrent.com/news...
o
o
o Reply
o
o Share