For years upon years the U.S. government has been using the ocean as a dumping ground for chemical weapons. Let me say that again.
FOR YEARS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN DUMPING CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN THE OCEAN
This is something I did not know about and I am guessing that maybe you don't either. I first read about it at Deep Sea News and from their links I went to The Daily Press which has been all over this. I can't believe this hasn't garnered more attention, even in the debilitated MSM, but also out here in the lefty blogoshpere.
Follow me below the fold if you can stomach it.
As Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report says in a post at Crooks and Liars
Who knew the U.S. was literally surrounded by WMDs?"
I didn’t.
Although I cannot say I am surprised. This just fucking blows me away.
Who thought this was a good idea? Do they think the ocean is a goddamned memory hole? As if just regular pollution, global warming, and over fishing weren’t enough already. You think these bastards are TRYING to kill the damn planet.
If you live near the coastline, as most Americans do regardless of what "The Heartland" would like to believe, you may want to take a look at this map:
Let’s all go to the beach - NOT.
The Daily Press has been all over this story but no one else seems to care. They have a series called Special Report: The Deadliness Below that is a must read for everyone (registration required). It doesn’t really matter if you live by the coast, or even go to the beach. If you have ever eaten a piece of fish in your life or happen to eat something else that has, you better be worried.
According to the report, hundreds of dolphins washed up on the shore in New Jersey and Virgina in 1987 with signs similar to those of mustard gas exposure. This makes my blood boil. The saddest part is not that the DOD thought they could get away with this. It’s that for all practical purposes they have. I’ll say again: I had no idea? Did you?
I am so disgusted I can barely continue to type, but here are a few choice excerpts from the series...
In the summer of 2004, a clam-dredging operation off New Jersey pulled up an old artillery shell.
The long-submerged World War I-era explosive was filled with a black tarlike substance.
Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base, Del., were brought in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured - one hospitalized with large pus-filled blisters on an arm and hand.
The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.
What was long feared by the few military officials in the know had come to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago finally ended up on shore in the United States.
It’s long been known that some chemical weapons went into the ocean, but records obtained by the Daily Press show that the previously classified weapons-dumping program was far more extensive than ever suspected.
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.
"We do not claim to know where they all are," said William Brankowitz, a deputy project manager in the Army Chemical Materials Agency and a leading authority on the Army’s chemical weapons dumping.
"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."
A drop of nerve agent can kill within a minute. When released in the ocean, it lasts up to six weeks, killing every organism it touches before breaking down into its nonlethal chemical components.
Mustard gas can be fatal. When exposed to seawater, it forms a concentrated, encrusted gel that lasts for at least five years, rolling around on the ocean floor, killing or contaminating sea life.
Sea-dumped chemical weapons might be slowly leaking from decades of saltwater corrosion, resulting in a time-delayed release of deadly chemicals over the next 100 years and an unforeseeable environmental effect. Steel corrodes at different rates, depending on the water depth, ocean temperature and thickness of the shells.
Typical government "dog ate my homework" bullshit. Well gee, we don’t really know where it all is and ummm, we really didn’t think it would matter to keep track. Since we were hoping you would never find out about it that is...
This practice was outlawed in 1972 after the Army admitted is was being done and Congress decided it wasn’t such a good idea. But what has been done since then you may ask. Well, nothing. The Army had two reports done on the movement and disposal of chemical weapons in 1987 and 1989 and a database was made in 2001 - none of which were released until recently.
he Army’s Brankowitz created the seminal report on ocean dumping. He examined classified Army records and in 1987 wrote a long report on chemical weapons movements over the decades. It included the revelation that more than a dozen shipments ended up in the ocean. The report wasn’t widely disseminated.
His follow-up report in 1989 uncovered - through review of other previously classified documents - the rough nautical coordinates of some dumpsites and the existence of more dump zones. In 2001, a computer database was created to include additional dump zones that the Army found and more details on some of the dumping operations.
The database summary and the 1989 report had never been released publicly before.
"I know I didn’t find everything," said Brankowitz, who’s worked for more than 30 years on chemical weapons issues for the Army. "I’m very much convinced there are records at the National Archives that have been misfiled. Short of a major research effort that would cost a lot of money, we’ve done the best we can."
The reports reveal that the Army created at least 26 chemical weapons dumpsites off the coast of at least 11 states - but knows the rough nautical coordinates of only half.
At least 64 million pounds of liquid mustard gas and nerve agent in 1-ton steel canisters were dumped into the sea, along with a minimum of 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, grenades, landmines and rockets - as well as radioactive waste, the reports indicate.
The Army’s documents are incomplete or vague. Years of records are missing or were destroyed to clear office space at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, a longtime chemical weapon research and testing base.
And here’s the real kicker for me about pre-WII dumping
And the Army hasn’t reviewed its records of chemical weapons dumping before World War II, when it was common to just throw the weapons into the ocean in relatively shallow water, Brankowitz said.
As a result, more dumpsites likely exist, he conceded
I can’t even imagine how many problems in the ecosystem have resulted from this. These weapons have had years to complete infuse themselves in the food supply.
How many people have died as a result of this? How many babies were born with birth defects? How many people have cancer or developmental disorders as a result of this exposure? Is there a single person in the entire country who hasn’t been exposed, somehow, to these weapons?
We will never know the answers to these questions unless we force them out of these bastards.
This is the point in the diary where I am supposed to make a call to action and scream for everyone to call their congressman and senators but I am not going to. I am drafting my letters and I am going to make my calls and once again bash my psyche against the rocky shores of indifference that is out government and their bullshit rhetoric of accountability. I can’t just do nothing and I suggest you can’t either, but if you don’t already have the numbers for the calls and the addresses for the letters, I suppose that’s what you will do and I just don’t have the energy to post them all here now. You know where to get them as do I.
People in power, both civilians and the military know about this, have known about this for years. If their conscience cannot make them act, then nothing will. They sit back and hope that we are all too busy worrying about Paris and crying for Sanjaya to notice. They hope that with the shit storm that is flying these days between Plamegate, Free Scooter! , Attorney-gate, GSA-gate, Iraq, Iran, and every other complete fuck up and lapse of responsibility by our government that maybe this one won’t be noticed.
Prove them wrong. Prove them wrong today.