Companies scouring the New Jersey coastline for new sources of oil and natural gas might unintentionally release U.S. chemical warfare material submerged in the Atlantic Ocean during the 20th century, the Press of Atlantic City reported Sunday (see GSN, Oct. 19, 2006).
Between World War I and the early 1970s, the U.S. Army plunged roughly 64 million pounds of chemical weapons into U.S. waters. Coordinates for many of the dumping sites were not recorded, and ocean currents might have shifted some of the lethal materials, which include mustard blister agent and sarin and VX nerve agents, according to a Congressional Research Service report published last year.
Material dropped near New Jersey beginning in 1957 included 48 1-ton containers of lewisite, 4,577 bulk containers of mustard agent, nearly 9,000 M55 rockets carrying VX or sarin and 38 bulk containers filled with the nerve agents.
"If you put an oil platform on top of one of those piles, it will be a concern. You don't want to be on a platform on top of this stuff," said environmental health expert Richard Albright. “There is enough of this stuff out there that they will want to check and see if the area is clear."
In September, U.S. lawmakers voted to permit oil and gas exploration 50 miles from the east and west coastlines. States must sign off on drilling before work could begin. Approval would not be needed to drill farther than 100 miles from shore.
No scientific studies have examined the potential effects of oil drilling on the chemical weapons deposits, Albright said.
"If they hit a site with their depth charge, there is going to be a problem. There's a risk there, but not enough to not do the drilling," he said, adding that breaking open a chemical-weapon container “could be a threat to the guys who may be breathing it before they even know it” (Donna Weaver, Press of Atlantic City, Oct. 19).
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