[CPEO-MEF] Offshore chemical weapons dumps

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

DECADES OF DUMPING CHEMICAL ARMS LEAVE A RISKY LEGACY

SPECIAL REPORT: The Deadliness Below

Weapons of mass destruction thrown into the sea years ago present danger
now - and the Army doesn't know where they all are.

BY JOHN M.R. BULL
Newport News Daily Press (VA)
October 30, 2005

In the summer of 2004, a clam-dredging operation off New Jersey pulled
up an old artillery shell.

The long-submerged World War I-era explosive was filled with a black
tarlike substance.

Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base, Del., were brought
in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured - one hospitalized with
large pus-filled blisters on an arm and hand.

The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.

What was long feared by the few military officials in the know had come
to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago
finally ended up on shore in the United States.

It's long been known that some chemical weapons went into the ocean, but
records obtained by the Daily Press show that the previously classified
weapons-dumping program was far more extensive than ever suspected.

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.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-02761sy0oct30,0,2199000.story?coll=dp-widget-news 




See also
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-chemicals-desc,0,803537.story?coll=dp-widget-news
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-09106sy0oct30,0,2395608.story?coll=dp-widget-news
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-02762sy0oct30,0,2788825.story 

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
_______________________________________________
Military mailing list
Military@list.cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org/mailman/listinfo/military