Death in the deep - thank you U.S. Navy

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The Thunder Child - 05 Nov 2005 23:03 GMT

>From October 30 to November 1, there was a series of articles in the

Hampton Daily News about all of the chemical weapons - for example
mustard gas, that the U. S. Navy threw overboard from its vessels from
the late 1940s, until they stopped in 1972. They didn't dump this
stuff off only our own shores, of course, but around the world. And,
they no longer know where all this stuff is.

Many fishermen in Europe have apparently been injured by toxins
escaping from their deteriorating containers, and way back in '97 quite

a few dead dolphins washed ashore, their bodies burned as if by mustard

gas.

And I remembered an episode of Sea Hunt, from 1961, I think (10 years
before the US stopped the practice) of diver Leonard Nimoy getting sick

and dying thanks to exposure to some nerve gas underwater, having dove
to close to an underwater depository of the stuff. Prescient?

So I'm wondering, has this made front-page news anywhere else except
Hampton Roads? There are articles on the web, but I don't see any vast
outrage or even mention on google news or yahoo news...

Science and Sanity
http://thethunderchild.blogspot.com/
The Thunder Child Science Fiction Journal
http://thethunderchild.omnivoreink.com/

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Weatherlawyer - 09 Nov 2005 21:16 GMT

> From October 30 to November 1, there was a series of articles in the
> Hampton Daily News about all of the chemical weapons - for example
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> Hampton Roads? There are articles on the web, but I don't see any vast
> outrage or even mention on google news or yahoo news...

It was common practice after WW II for the nations involved to dispose
of their stock of poisons (euphemistically desribed as surplus
ordnance) in the seas around their shores. Not unnaturally the source
of these things not manufactured by Haber was the USA.

Most people bought their weapons there apparently they still do despite
the flux of used arms in Russia. Anyway, the point is that more
dolphins are killed in fishing nets than by excess WMDs.

What the US got up to in the late 60's or early 70's was to deposit
stuff like Agent Orange and that equally deadly rocket fuel, hydrazine
in deep aquifers where "natural processes" would "take care" of it.

Quite how that would happen was never pointed out to me.

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Natural Science Forum / Earth Science / Oceanography / November 2005

Death in the deep - thank you U.S. Navy