Fishing crews face horrifying burns from dredging the dumped chemical weapons.
Until 1970, the US dumped an estimated 17,000 tons of unspent chemical weapons from World War I and II off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean—and that disposal decision continues to haunt commercial fishing operations.
In an article published this week in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, health officials from New Jersey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that there were at least three incidents of commercial fishing crews dredging up dangerous chemical warfare munitions (CWMs) off the coast of New Jersey between 2016 and 2023.
The three incidents exposed at least six crew members to mustard agent, which causes blistering chemical burns on skin and mucous membranes. (An example of these types of burns can be seen here, but be warned, the image is graphic.) One crew member required overnight treatment in an emergency department for respiratory distress and second-degree blistering burns. Another was burned so badly that they were hospitalized in a burn center and required skin grafting and physical therapy.
This was really the best thinking of the time? Dump chemical weapons where we get food from?
They also dumped nuclear waste there iirc. The barrels floated up, so they fired machine guns at them to make sure they sunk. The solution to polition is dilution! That was a common theme from the 20’s to the 20’s.
I was also hoping that the article would explain why. I was guessing that with certain chemicals, it might dilute it enough to become harmless.
But instead, the closest I found was this, which cited cost as the reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_munitions
I’d like to see a comparison of the long term economic costs of these accidents with just dealing with them early on. Or even entombing them the way we do nuclear waste.
I also found this article and map
https://nonproliferation.org/chemical-weapon-munitions-dumped-at-sea/
