[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS - Underwater in Canada

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Underwater explosives put environment at risk, says expert

The Canadian Press
February 24, 2008

OTTAWA - Canada could be on the brink of an "ecological nightmare" as 
chemicals and explosives from submerged military boneyards seep into the 
water, says a retired U.S. navy bomb disposal expert.

Jim Barton, a senior technician with the U.S. navy's explosive ordnance 
disposal unit between 1975 and 1999, says the clock is ticking to clean 
up hundreds of thousands of discarded weapons from the floors of 
Canada's lakes, rivers and ocean areas.

"If you wait . .. one day, you wake up and you've got an ecological 
nightmare on your hands," Barton said in an interview from Norfolk, Va.

A Defence Department list of 731 sites, prepared last April, cites 92 
underwater spots across Canada potentially laden with unexploded 
explosive ordnance, or UXOs - military jargon for weapons that have yet 
to detonate.

...

For the entire article, see
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jEqQZaEq1bdyPWm0Uhx8OIeL-sng

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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



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