
Chemical Weapon Munitions Dumped at Sea: An Interactive Map - Gracana
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z11IVBOIyXAE.k3s-8khGniII
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refurb
There has been work done on the fate of chemical weapons dumped into the
ocean, especially mustard gas.[1]

Interestingly, many bacteria can feed directly on the hydrolysis products
(after the mustard gas reacts with water) and use them as a carbon source.

 _The MGHP-degrading microorganisms identified as Achromobacter sp.,
Pseudomonas sp., and Arthrobacter sp. were isolated. These microorganisms were
capable of utilizing the major product of hydrolysis, thiodiglycol, as the
sole source of carbon and energy. The bacteria were capable of metabolizing
MGHPs at a low temperature. The metabolic pathway for thiodiglycol degradation
was proposed. The results suggest the potential for MGHPs biodegradation by
naturally occurring populations of near-bottom-water and sediment
microorganisms._

[1][http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19481794](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19481794)

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comrh
According to a little googling [1] mustard gas breaks down in water (although
slower in salt water) and doesn't bioconcentrate as well.

1:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=G8O4KUEyIXAC&pg=PA35&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=G8O4KUEyIXAC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=mustard+gas+salt+water&source=bl&ots=ctfNiPH8Zp&sig=MxBNyqhioW-
ulmHaCZC9q-NsN98&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mP-
_VPu1IILjsATW_IH4Dg&ved=0CF4Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=mustard%20gas%20salt%20water&f=false)

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Alupis
Anyone know why there were dumped into the ocean instead of being destroyed?
I'd wager a great deal of the dumped ordinance is still in-tact at the bottom
of the ocean, albeit corroded. The plethora of buried mines and other
unexploded ordinance still being found from WWI and WWII speak to munitions
longevity.

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CapitalistCartr
After WW II dumping into the ocean was seen as destroying it. Our modern
understanding of "The Environment" post-dates that time period. In 1950 there
were about 2.5 billion people in the World, and that was a big new thing. The
petrochemical industry was still in it's youth. Colorful car paints were the
new thing. Colorful, synthetic fabrics were just being developed. A lot of our
current understanding is the result of our past mistakes. Like lighting rivers
on fire.

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BrandonMarc
Exactly. Consider ... lead paint, everywhere. Leaded gasoline was the norm,
EVERYWHERE, with little exception.

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maaku
Well, that's a different issue, having to do with the also relatively recent
understanding that trace amounts of a substance can also be toxic over long
intervals.

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CapitalistCartr
It's exactly the issue. Trace amounts of military weapons in the ocean are
probably a bad idea, too. The whole business of environmentalism is post-war.
Mostly since Rachael Carson's "Silent Spring".

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BrandonMarc
Interesting how nearly all the sites are so darned close to the shore. I'm
guessing the conversation goes like this:

• "hey, we need to get rid of these, let's do it in that giant body of water
nearby"

• "okay, whatever, what's the minimum distance we legally have to travel?
diesel fuel isn't cheap (and my kids don't swim anyway)"

• "___ miles"

• "fine. find a spot that isn't near any important* people's view, and I don't
care about the rest"

Does that about cover it?

* i.e. celebrities, journalists, policymakers, rich people ... in other words, those who are influential _and_ likely to care ... not saying I agree with this, just surmising it's probably how the conversation went

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chr15p
The ones around Britain and the North sea look close to shore but mostly seem
to be tens of miles out at depths of 1600ft or more (the ones between Denmark
and Norway are 2100ft+) so the chances of people kids swimming near them or
even pulling them up in fishing nets are pretty much zero.

So if its 1946 and you have to dispose of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of
chemical weapons sitting around taking them out further seems like a waste of
time and resources.

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jqm
Can these be retrieved and used or are they deep enough (hopefully) that
retrieval is impractical?

Horrible either way. Not just pollution, not just the nasty purpose in the
first place... but the waste. Just imagine the good that could have taken
place with the resources used to create and dispose of the weapons in the
first place.

As far as I can see, humanity has two choices. Either leave off the tribal
feuds and find a better way, or else go back to using bows and spears to solve
conflicts.

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maaku
Given how corroded they probably, you are more likely to release contimants
from the cleanup than letting it sit on the bottom.

It might be possible to an environmental seal, however.

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krylon
This is _scary_. I had no idea how much of that stuff is - basically - just
lying around.

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UserRights
I get this when I want to tweet this:

This map is not public You must change the permissions from "Private" to
"Public on the web" before posting or embedding this map.

But this should be shared, a lot!

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Gracana
Whoops, I guess I chose the wrong sharing option. Fixed now.

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filvdg
The dumpsite in front of the belgian coast is at the wrong location , it
should be at the right side of the port of zeebrugge
[http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/gasoorlog/paardenmarkt.html](http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/gasoorlog/paardenmarkt.html)

it is a well documented dump site that is tested in regular intervals, no
concentrations of pollution is detected in the water up until now .... it has
been discussed to clean up the place but the risks are too high ...

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Gracana
The original article download is a KMZ file but I extracted the KML and loaded
into a custom google map so it could be viewed online. Interesting stuff.
There are a lot of mustard gas bombs rusting and leaking into the sea. 29
tons* off the coast of Honolulu, for a particularly egregious example.

* and a 1500 ton dump nearby. I'm going to stop editing, because I keep finding bigger and bigger ones...

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BrandonMarc
From an infographic point of view, it might be worthwhile to use different
colors or sizes of icons, to indicate the relative size of the munitions
dumped compared to the others. Of course, you'd use ranges (0-10, 11-20, etc)
and probably a logarithmic scale (0-10, 11-100, 101-1000, etc) ...

If you're really motivated, you might incorporate age as well.

Well done. I hope this raises awareness. Thanks for posting this!

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Gracana
That would be a fantastic way to display it, yeah. I imagine it can be done
with the google maps API, but that's a lot more effort than it took for me to
upload it, haha.

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rbcgerard
This is great and depressing at the same time...

For those of you that don't realize it there is a tremendous amount of dumped
ordinance close to shore - zoom around this chart and you'll find a lot
[http://www.nauticalchartsonline.com/chart/zoom?chart=12300](http://www.nauticalchartsonline.com/chart/zoom?chart=12300)

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green7ea
That's a pretty cool map. What source material did you use to plot all these
points?

Edit: nevermind, I answered my own question after finding this link in the map
([http://cns.miis.edu/stories/090806_cw_dumping.htm](http://cns.miis.edu/stories/090806_cw_dumping.htm))

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UserRights
hmm, this can not be complete, I have read about places in the middle sea that
are heavily toxic but can not find them here. Is there any collaborative
review and research process connected to the data represented by this map? If
not, it should be created!

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stefantalpalaru
It's missing some WW2 data like the huge contamination in the port of Bari
with mustard gas:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_on_Bari](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_on_Bari)

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xpda
Wow! There are five times as many dumps if you zoom out. That's an interesting
way to implement map panning.

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azinman2
Mmmmm mustardy seafood.....

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shawnb576
nFaithInHumanity--

