Posted on 04/14/2018 11:25:57 AM PDT by Jyotishi
Full title: Researchers report that chemical weapons dumped at sea are corroding but have not yet released toxic contents
KyleJuly 28, 2010DMZ Hawaii
http://www.dmzhawaii.org/dmz-legacy-site-two/?p=7485
University of Hawai'i researchers have concluded a three year research project to determine whether chemical munitions dumped at sea off O'ahu pose a threat to the health of humans or the environment.
Documents disclosed by the Army in 2007 reported that approximately 16,000 munitions containing 2,558 tons of chemical agents were dumped at three deep-water sites off Oahu. The chemical agent included lewisite, mustard, cyanogen chloride and cyanide.
According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser article:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/99399389.html
The School of Ocean Earth Science and Technology research for the U.S. Army reported that even the best-preserved munitions casings are deteriorating, but the observations and data collected “do not indicate any adverse impacts on ecological health” in the study area, known as HI-05, the university said.
Furthermore, the article reports:
The Pentagon does not plan to remove any of the chemical weapons because it said there is no data to indicate any of the dumped munitions pose a threat to human health or the environment.
The conclusion that there is no adverse impact on ecological health is misleading. Most of the 2000 munitions identified by UH researchers were badly corroded but had not yet broken open to release their toxic contents.
The story on KHNL television was more qualified in reporting the safety of the munitions:
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=12881617
Findings show the World War II munitions buried at sea are still intact, but they are corroding, which means one day, they could leak chemicals into the ocean.
The Hawaii Independent provides more in-depth reporting on the study's findings.
http://thehawaiiindependent.com/story/uh-says-military-munitions-sea-disposal-site-not-hurting-ecological-health/
But the news media failed to mention the hidden story related to the funding for the research. In 2007, politicians were quick to jump on the issue of the chemical munitions dumping because it was politically safe to criticize such an egregious example of the military's poor environmental conduct while steering federal funding to Hawai'i to “study” the impacts. Funding was funneled through the Indefinite Deliverable / Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Applied Research Laboratory contract, otherwise known as the controversial Navy University Affiliated Research Center (UARC). In 2005, a coalition of students, faculty and community staged a campaign to stop the establishment of the classified Navy research center at the University of Hawai'i, which culminated in a week-long occupation of UH President David McClain's office. Despite overwhelming opposition, the UH Board of Regents approved the UARC, but the program had been severely diminished.
The Applied Research Laboratory has set up a contract vehicle, a pipeline for non-competed military contracts to be directed to UH research projects. The UH researchers are now set up to seek future funding to study, but not necessarily clean up the toxic mess.
Filed Under: Environmental Impacts, Ho'ola Hawai'i - Environmental Justice, Military Appropriations, Earmarks, O'ahu, Stop UARC / Applied Research Lab
Tagged: chemical weapons, environmental damage, ocean dumping, Stop UARC / Applied Research Lab, uarc, University of Hawai'i
Hmmmm. Not a word about the chemical munitions
dumped in the Atlantic after both world wars...
Nor those in the North Sea, or the Farallon Islands off of San Fran. Maybe that’s why those White sharks get so big....
Mentions WWII munitions dumped...still intact...
“The Horror of Party Beach” (1964)
quick google tells you that there are 187 quintillion gallons of water in the Pacific.
This is dumping about 613025 gallons of chemicals.
There’s a math of parts per million to go into, but it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that the amount contemplated is negligible amount.
Nor Johnston Island . Pacific Ocean. Radioactive debris due to high altitude tests. Agent Orange. etc. Not on my places to visit...
The chemical weapons were dumped close to the shoreline, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1981 (available free online). Also, Sarin gas was tested on land:
U.S. Military secretly tested Sarin Nerve gas in Hawaii
Your calculation is certainly correct after complete dilution in all the world’s oceans has taken place, but neglects the reality that the concentration will be quintillions of times higher at the location of the actual leaks, before any significant dilution has taken place. These higher concentrations will easily be lethal to local life in the vicinity of the munitions.
Note also that if companies attempted to dump such chemicals in the oceans, they’d be fined millions of dollars for gross negligence. But, since the government did it, everything’s hunky dory.
Cyanides are common metabolic products of bacteria and plants. This whole thing is a big nothingburger.
The article doesn’t mention exactly how deep the munitions are. Oahu is surrounded by the Kaua’i Deep to the north, the O’ahu Deep to the west, and the Lana’i Deep to the south. They’re all at least 3 miles deep.
There’s little mixing of such deep waters. The munitions are far below the thermocline.
There is so much toxic crap buried in our country and off of our shores that we may never find it all. That’s just the way government did things during WWII and Cold War.
Undersea volcanic vents spew hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide, and assorted other nasty things... yet there’s life around them, even life dependent on chemicals that would kill people...
We used to dispose of 20mm overboard, not such a good idea, but cyanide among other things? Isn’t this just wonderful?
At least when Claudius, Emperor of Rome dumped his grandmother’s chest of poisons (Poison is Queen) into the ocean, shortly after thousands of dead fish floated to the surface. Claudius ordered that anyone eating the fish were to be put to death.- Claudius the God by Graves.
Meanwhile, Hawaii is about to ban sunscreen because of bad science saying it hurts coral.
But it would (will) take hundreds, if not tousands, of years to become fully diluted. If that is even possible.
Water exchange in the depths is very slow as there is no wind or sun to power movement as on the surface and in shallows.
In the short term seepage will be concentrated around the leaking containers.
More so at greater depths.
That's probably a good thing as the introduction of leaked chemicals into surrounding waters will be further slowed giving natural processes enen more time to dissipate the poisons.
Still, it is a shortsighted way to dispose of munitions and other dangerous substances.
You would be correct IF the dispersal were uniform over the entire volume. That is not how leaks happen. Coral reefs are very delicate habitats. An entire habitat can be wiped out with a drifting concentration of these toxic brews.
Didn’t seem to bother or stop the Japanese in Dec of ‘41
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