U.S. Army Chemical Weapon Dumping Program More Extensive Than Originally Thought

A U.S. Army chemical weapons off-shore dumping program that ended in 1970 was much more extensive than originally thought, the Newport News Daily Press reported this weekend (see GSN, Oct. 25).

The Army has admitted that from 1944 to 1970 it dumped 64 million gallons of nerve and mustard gas agent, 400,000 chemical-filled rockets, bombs and landmines and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste into the oceans.

These weapons were dumped off the shores of 11 states — six on the East coast, two on the Gulf Coast and Alaska, Hawaii and California. Of the 26 dump zones, none has been examined in the last 30 years. 

The Army is not sure exactly where all of the dumping sites are located, and thinks there may be additional sites that date back to World War I.

“We do not claim to know where they all are,” said William Brankowitz, a deputy project manager in the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency. “We don’t want to be cavalier at all and say this stuff was exposed to water and is OK. It can last for a very, very long time.”

These weapons could be leaking from saltwater corrosion, causing a time release of the chemicals and having unknown effects on the environment. They were deemed surplus by the Army, which had few options for what to do with them, according to the Daily Press.

The Army in the 1970s publicly admitted that it had dumped the weapons. In 1972 the United States signed a treaty banning the practice. 

“The perception at the time was the ocean is vast — it would absorb it,” said Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group. “Certainly, it is insane in retrospect they would do it.”

The Army believes most of the weapons are in very deep water and do not pose a risk to divers or commercial fishing operations. However, fisherman and divers cannot deliberately avoid most of the dumpsites, because only one is marked on nautical maps, according to the Daily Press (John Bull, Newport News Daily Press/Los Angeles Times, Oct. 30).

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