WMDs close to home

[PUGalicious]

From Deep-Sea News:

It is no secret that the U.S. military has used the ocean as trashcan for munitions in the past. Peter discussed at the Old DSN how federal lawmakers were pressing the US Army to reveal everything it knows about a massive international program to dump chemical weapons off homeland and foreign shores. "The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels." Brian pointed me to the Daily Press's in depth coverage of this whole issue. Registration is free and only takes a minute or two and is extremely worthwhile. Included at the site are maps of disposal sites (downloadable as pdfs), stories, descriptions of items dumped including nerve and musturd gas, and rather depressing pictures some are below the fold (all from Daily Press).

Hundreds of dolphins washed ashore in Virginia and New Jersey shorelines in 1987 with burns similar to mustard gas exposure. One marine-mammal specialist suspects Army-dumped chemical weapons killed them. (Photo courtesy of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in New Jersey)

The SS William Ralston filled with 301,000 mustard gas bombs and 1,500 1-ton canisters of Lewsite -- sinks in the Pacific off San Fransico in 1958 (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army)

[Karried]

Wow! I've never heard of this. That is so scary.

[Midtowner]

Just for the partisan fun of it -- the dumping began in 1944 at the authorization of a Democrat (FDR) and was halted in the first year of the Nixon administration.

[PUGalicious]

It's disgusting no matter who authorized it.

[Midtowner]

I really don't think that back in those days much thought at all was paid to environmental impact. We didn't really become "environmentally aware" until sometime in the 70's probably.

It's kind of like slavery or other horrible transgressions of the past (I don't think it really compares to slavery, but it's the first thing which came to mind). To determine the moral culpability of the bad actors, it's important to look at their behavior according to the norms and the knowledge of the day. To judge them by today's standards is really unfair.

There's not much that can be said other than that. Clearly, there has been a little analysis as I read that mustard gas and other chemical agents eventually will break down into harmless chemical components. Radioactive waste has a halflife.. what damage will be done has been done, or is at least imminent. Yeah, it's really, really bad and it makes me happy that my drinking water doesn't come out of the ocean and that I live a long ways away from the ocean.

Perhaps this can be used to lure a coastal NBA franchise to OKC?

[OkieKAS]

“WMD’s found in Oklahoma”
April 27th, 2007

Army team cleans up chemicals

130 chemical vials uncovered


Officials speculate chemical at Salt Plains could be mustard gas

Hundreds of thousands of the training kits for the military were produced between 1930 and 1950, and many were lost or buried at artillery and training sites, according to a 2005 study by the corps.

OKLAHOMA — Glass chemical vials discovered at Great Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge last weekend are from now-obsolete kits the U.S. military used to train soldiers in identifying chemical weapons, an Army spokesman said Saturday.


A 20-member team from the U.S. Army's 22nd Chemical Battalion in Maryland arrived at the refuge's public selenite crystal-digging area Friday and began cleaning up the site Saturday morning.

"These vials were part of what's called a chemical agent identification set,” 1st Sgt. Scott Boatman said. "There were over 200,000 of these sets made from the 1930s to the 1960s, and they were used to train soldiers to identify chemical agents.”

The glass vials were discovered last weekend. A Boy Scout digging for crystals unearthed a vial that, when broken, caused the boy's throat to burn and his eyes to water.

The boy suffered no lingering damage, and, said 1st Sgt. Michael Moon, the kits don't contain chemicals in deadly concentrations.

"They're irritants, but they're not lethal,” Moon said. "The chemical agents like mustard gas are diluted.”

Moon said the vials would be collected and shipped to an incineration facility.

Not an unusual find
Mood said the vials' discovery wasn't all that unusual.

"We've found them in South Dakota, North Carolina, Alaska, Alabama, Guam — all over the place,” Moon said. "The military stopped using them in the late '60s, but there were a lot of them made up to then.”

Boatman estimated the military team would be on the site at least two days collecting chemical vials, but refuge officials are still scratching their heads about how the vials ended up there in the first place.


The discovery forced refuge officials earlier this week to close the popular 40-acre crystal digging area.
-
Armed guards prevent anyone from entering the closed gates.