Agent Orange clean at Navy Seabee base is the focus at public meeting

GULFPORT, MS (WLOX) - The Vietnam-era herbicide known as Agent Orange remains on land at the Navy Seabee Base in Gulfport, more than 40 years after it was first brought there.

Tuesday, a public meeting is scheduled to update residents on the continuing efforts to cleanup and contain the chemical which has been linked to numerous cancers. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Isaiah Fredericks Community Center, 3312 Martin Luther King Blvd in Gulfport.

Gulfport was the largest storage area for the chemical in the continental United States before it was shipped to Vietnam. Agent Orange was stockpiled on a 30 acre site from 1968 to 1977.

Over the years, the chemical has been removed from areas outside the Seabee Base and brought to a containment site on base which has been contained under one foot of concrete. That area is now used as a mobilization site for Navy heavy equipment.