Operation Trail Dust Operation Ranch Hand On 9 August 2012, it
was announced that the United States and Vietnam's defense
ministry had launched the first cleanup operation to rid what
had been Da Nang Air Base of toxic dioxin left from the Vietnam
war. The project aimed to clean up soil and sediment
contaminated with dangerous levels of toxin dioxin. What had
subsequently become Da Nang Airport had been used to store
herbicides during the US counterinsurgency campaign in Vietnam.
Da Nang Airport was the most toxic of 28 so-called dioxin "hot
spots" in Vietnam. The $43 million project would excavate and
clean up 73,000 cubic meters of soil and sediment around the
airport. The soil and sediment would be heat treated to destroy
or otherwise reduce the amount of dioxin to acceptable levels.
The US embassy said at the time that the soil should be safe for
use by 2016. The toxin, which had been linked to disease and
birth defects, remained a dark reminder of the war. Over the
preceding 13 years, the US provided $54