Discarded chemical weapons causing ocean problems

by William Atkins

Tuesday, 01 April 2008

Page 1 of 2 ! An American-Japenese report has described the dumping of thousands of tons of chemical weapons and munitions into the sea. Unfortunately, the countries dumping such chemicals don’t always know where they are located. According to the article “Dangerous unknowns—MBARI researcher points out lack of information on chemical weapons dumps in the sea,” American chemist Peter G. Brewer at the Research Institute of the Monterey Bay Aquarium (Moss Landing, California, United States) has written about large amounts of chemical weapons that were dumped in the oceans between 1946 and 1972 and, now, continue to degrade and cause problems for ocean researchers and workers. The history of these chemical materials goes back to World War II (1939-1945) when countries dumped large amounts of old chemical weapons overboard--some estimates say over 50,000 tons (one hundred million pounds, or around 45.3 million kilograms). Countries nearing the end of the war did not know where to dispose of large amounts of old chemicals. Governments decided that the ocean was an easy and cheap way to get rid of them. Since no international regulations were implemented at that time, it was legal to do so. So, they did. In the 1960s, a committee of scientists from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommended different ways to dispose of chemical weapons. As a result of its actions, in 1972, however, the London Convention (formally called the "Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972") part of the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO), made it illegal for ocean disposal of chemical weapons and munitions materials. These chemical weapons, such as sarin, tabun, lewisite, and mustard, are now slowly reacting with the seawater and, consequently, degrading into more dangerous substances. For example, lewisite degrades into arsenic. Such actions are causing health and safety problems to fisherpersons and ocean scientists who accidently come across them while performing their work. In fact, Brewer comments that about five hundred people around the world have been injured since 1946 because of these dangerous sunken weapon stashes. About two hundred of these injured people needed hospitalization. Some disposal sites along the West Coast of the United States, for instance, have been studied by scientists; however most of their locations are unknown to the world, and to the countries that dumped them. A known location of one of these underwater chemical sites is off the coast of Monterey Bay. It is about 1,575 square miles (2,475 square kilometers) in area, a quite large area of hazardous materials. There are over thirty documented disposal sites off of the western and eastern coasts of the United States. However, the contents deposited at these sites are only sketchy at best. The U.S. west coast is believed to have more unknown sites than the east coast, just from the mere fact that more sites are known on the east coast. And, the sites that are known to exist are only known to be there. The size of most of them has never been measured. Off the coast of Japan, as another example, disposal sites are also poorly documented. Japanese fisherpersons often run across these sites because they were dumped in shallow waters. What does Brewer think about the situation? Read on! << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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