Buried poison: abandoned chemical weapons pose continual threat.

TACOMA, Wash. -- Hidden chemical weapons are scattered across the globe, in rivers, bays, lakes and oceans, and buried in the ground at current and former military bases.

Lost and abandoned chemical weapons are known as non-stockpile materiel--separate from the world's stockpile chemical weapons, which are tightly guarded and regulated.

These chemical weapons of yesteryear are lying dormant. One expert hopes the wrong people don't discover them first.

Accidental discovery of chemicals by civilians is a serious concern, but another more sinister possibility exists. Terrorists could find--and steal--the hazardous containers, said Frank Bennett, vice president of Versar Inc./Geomet Technologies, a company that specializes in classified and hazardous projects.

Bennett believes that the free availability of non-stockpile weapons gives terrorists an advantage because materiel that was buried at current and former military bases is not always guarded, he said.

"The terrorists I know don't have concern for human life, they just want the easiest target," Bennett said.

The possibility of such an attack is just one consequence of dumping chemical warfare agents all over the world. "There are social ramifications and prices to pay," he said.

Discarded after World War I and II in what was then thought as a final disposal solution, "these weapons now pose a major threat to everyone," Bennett said during a Lodestar Group special operations conference.

Non-stockpile materiel is a serious danger because there is no real way to know where most of it is located and in what quantity, Bennett said. That information was not comprehensively recorded after the wars.

The hidden items include recovered weapons, samples, old production facilities, binary chemicals--which form lethal chemical agents by mixing two non-lethal chemicals during flight--and miscellaneous equipment such as empty aerial spray cans.

Following World War II, the United States alone dropped 100,000 tons of chemical agents throughout the world, Bennett said in an interview. The nation was an "equal-opportunity dumper," he quipped. The Army dropped containers along the U.S. East and West coasts, the Baltic and North Seas, and the Japan Sea, among other locales.

On U.S. soil, non-stockpile materiel has been found in 42 states, at 1,200 sites and 153 locations, Bennett added, and the numbers keep going up. "The scope of the problem is not fully quantified," he said.

Because these weapons are hidden in many unknown places, they are sometimes found purely by accident. Unassuming civilians, such as farmers plowing their fields or children playing in the park, have uncovered them.

A group of Washington, D.C. construction workers dug up chemical weapons while building an apartment complex in an upscale neighborhood, Bennett said.

These situations are dangerous for those who do not understand the threat. Although the dumped agents were initially put in containers decades ago, they are now often degraded and leaking when unearthed, he said.

When people find them, they want to touch the metal and can subsequently become contaminated, Bennett explained. "People are inquisitive beyond rational behavior."

Accidental discoveries occur all over the world, where tons of non-stockpile agents are hidden. An average of 500 chemical weapons are found every year in Belgium, Bennett said.

The level of danger varies depending on the type and quantity. Most of the dumped chemicals following World War I and II were blister and nerve agents.

During World War I, the Germans released chlorine gas and mustard gas, Bennett said.

In World War II, the Germans bombed an American ship in Bari Harbor, Italy, with two thousand 100-pound mustard bombs, the Federation of American Scientists said. Also during World War II, Japan used chemical weapons against China.

If a blister agent, such as mustard gas, is unearthed and exposed, it becomes gelatinous and can be poisonous, Bennett explained.

More than 200 Danish fishermen have inadvertently pulled up mustard gas in fishing nets and been hospitalized, the European Commission said.

Nerve agents, such as chlorine gas, disintegrate rapidly when exposed to the air, Bennett said.

To decrease the likelihood that containers are found by civilians on U.S. soil, the nonstockpile chemical materiel project, developed by the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, has been working to eliminate them since 1992. The program oversees the transportation and disposal of the weapons, responds to unplanned discoveries and destroys Facilities and equipment.

The Army uses old records of the drop missions to locate the buried weapons, but is constrained by the lack of detailed historical documents.

When the Army--or some unsuspecting individual--does find a hidden weapon, that materiel is treated just as a stockpile agent. It is handled and contained according to Army regulations and shipped away for destruction.

One significant challenge the Army now faces is finding and disposing of abandoned chemical weapons in the ocean.

From World War I through 1970, containers were dropped into the sea because "it was thought that the vastness of ocean waters would absorb chemical agents that may leak from these weapons," a Congressional Research Service report entitled "U.S. Disposal of Chemical Weapons in the Ocean: Background and Issues for Congress" said. That thinking has drastically changed. Public health and environmental advocates believe that contaminated water may contribute to sickness in coastal populations and poisoned marine life.

Also, a 2001 Army report found that ocean drops were much more common and widespread than initially thought. The Army recorded 74 cases of disposal through 1970, including 32 instances off U.S. shores and 42 instances off foreign shores.

But the lack of coordinates for disposal sites makes it hard to completely quantify the problem. And natural ocean currents may have moved many of the containers.

The work being done to identify and properly dispose of non-stockpile chemical materiel is a step in the right direction, but it will not be quickly or easily accomplished, Bennett said. The non-stockpile materiel will continue to plague generations to come, he warned. "Our kids and grandkids will be finding them."

Lawmakers in the United States are hoping to alleviate this problem.

Through new legislation, government agencies are expected to receive more resources to assess the danger and recover materiel from the sea floor.

The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of 2007 requires increased review of historical documents to find chemical and conventional weapons dumped off U.S. shores and to research the effects and monitor health or safety risks, the CRS report said.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, wrote a bill to address these problems in early 2006 after the Army reported finding 15 million pounds of chemical weapons off the shores of their state. The bill--which included plans to survey Hawaiian waters, monitor drop sites and begin a research project to study the effects of seawater on chemical weapons--was signed into law as part of the John Warner act.

For the Army, the destruction of stockpile weapons also has presented its share of problems.

Stockpile agents are currently being destroyed in compliance with the international Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty that was ratified in 1997 to rid the world of declared chemical weapons.

Under the CWC, all member nations have agreed to dispose of their stockpile, recovered chemical agents and to destroy former production facilities. These tasks were supposed to be completed by April 2007, but the United States and several other countries have fallen behind the goals set by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international office that implements the treaty.

Delays, work stoppages and environmental issues prompted the United States to request an extension. The OPCW granted a five-year extension to 2012. Yet, it appears unlikely that the United States will meet the 100 percent disposal goal by that date.

"At this time, we do not expect to be able to meet the April 29, 2012 deadline for destruction of the U.S. declared chemical warfare stockpile," the Department of State announced.

Although the United States is farthest along in the international program, having destroyed 45 percent of its stockpile, troubles meeting the CWC dates point to the difficulty of eliminating even highly regulated and controlled chemicals.

Bennett believes the 2012 goal was unreasonable from the start. "It's not realistic to say that countries can meet this goal," he said.

The Unites States has requested a new deadline of 2023 from the OPCW, but it has not yet been approved, he said.

So far, the 182 CWC member nations have destroyed only 25 percent, or 18,000 tons, of declared weapons. A total of 71,000 tons have been declared.

Chemical demilitarization is tough because it is a "political and environmental issue as much as an economic issue," Bennett said. "It is slow, painful and costly to destroy."

Russia, for example, has the largest chemical weapons stockpile, but has made it clear to U.S. officials that it needs technological and financial assistance to dispose of its materiel, a CRS report said. The United States committed to assisting Russia, but also faces its own fiscal challenges.

The Pentagon first estimated in 1985 that its stockpile disposal program would cost up to $2 billion. So far, the nation has spent $39 billion, Bennett said. "The crisis is continually going up, going up to billions of dollars," he said.

High prices also affect non-stockpile disposal plans. Projections to remove and destroy non-stockpile weapons range from $8.9 billion to more than $20 billion, Bennett added.

One of the reasons costs have ballooned is because of the complex process of disposal. There are three methods of destroying chemical weapons: neutralization, incineration and detonation, Bennett said.

To neutralize, the agent is exposed to another solution to dilute into compounds. The solution itself is then destroyed. With the second method, the agent is incinerated at a high temperature. Detonation involves setting the agent in a chamber and blowing it up.

China has 490,000 shells on its land that were left by the Japanese in World War II, he said. It is averaging $1 million to destroy each one, the cost of which is being paid for by the Japanese.

Besides financial constraints, disposal is often bogged down by strict regulations. The Army has set "authorized exposure limits" to protect workers who decontaminate and dispose of weapons, Bennett explained. The Army also has set tight controls for storing and handling chemical agents, but at a high cost to the workers and the companies, he said.

"There is so much control over stockpile and declared non-stockpile ... a more realistic and scientific approach is needed," Bennett said.

He said workers can still meet the regulations under looser limits and could finish their work more efficiently.

Such limits are absent in overseas locations, Bennett explained. In Belgium, for example, chemicals are kept uncontained in open rooms. "Weapons are not a hazard just laying there," he said, as long as they aren't tampered with.

Beyond cost overruns and delays, other political problems persist with the chemical weapons convention. Although 182 countries have signed the agreement, some members are still suspected of harboring equipment or materials.

At least 16 countries have active chemical weapons programs, the CIA said. "It is suspected that some signatories (such as Iran and Sudan) and several countries that have not signed the CWC (Egypt, Israel, North Korea and Syria) may still be developing or producing CW," the CRS report said.

The technology and materials used to make lethal agents are available worldwide, so it is possible that other countries or terrorists may have or soon will have chemical weapons capabilities, the report added.

It is difficult to know which nations have programs, CRS said, "because the [chemical weapons] convention has not been aggressively implemented and there have been no challenge inspections."

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