[links]

[wispfox]

From drwex, 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.

A Daily Press investigation also found:

These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states - six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.

The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army has examined only a few of its 26 dump zones and none in the past 30 years.

The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from World War II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed.

More dumpsites likely exist. The Army hasn't reviewed World War I-era records, when ocean dumping of chemical weapons was common.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Your link, blob-like, has taken over the world...Or at least the whole post.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

That's because I couldn't decide which parts made most sense as a link. So it's the link which ate my post! :)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

As for content...eew. But not terribly unexpected. One of my old science teachers used to have the pleasant job of going after "dropped" nuclear weapons and ascertaining their state (intact, broken, etc.), so he shared a bunch of horror stories along those lines with us. Y'know, like when the US had to import a few tons of French sand due to it suddenly being radioactive after a bomber door swung open, or the missile that's *still* lost somewhere in the swamps of the South.

Or the bomb that got dropped but not armed, and was down to a single safety interlock (out of seven) between it and explosion. Yeah. Fun stuff.

Of course, chemical weapons tend to have more a spread even if they don't "go off", so I'm more concerned about them. War's a dirty business, and concentrating its poisons always struck me as a bad idea; but leaving it lying around is even worse!

[rosefox]

My jaw literally dropped. As I was resting my chin on my hand at the time, this is no small feat.

Absolutely unbelievable.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah. More or less my reaction as well.

Also makes me nervous to swim in ocean waters on the US coast... which I like doing, dammit!

[motyl.livejournal.com]

Quite.

We get to trade jellyfish stings for mustard gas burns after we accidentally kill off all of the jellyfish.

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this does not surprise me in the least, given all the former military bases that are on the EPA list of superfund sites (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/05/11/national/w232413D19.DTL). Our military's environmental legacy is pretty clear. On the other hand I believe they know better now and probably wont do that again. It being the military though that can never be certain, it is not their main mission.