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The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

economist.com

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Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#41

Post by sekasi »

grumblepeet wrote: post #20

My father, who was in the Royal Engineers at the end of WWII and for a few years after, was always worried about the "tons" of mustard gas and explosives that he and his colleagues were ordered to dump into the Irish Sea. He told me that some of the explosives were so unstable that they "sweated" nitroglycerine, and they used to run their finger down the sides of the explosives and flick it at each other to make smal…

Terrifying. But like you said, basically kids during the war forced to do a lot of things most modern day guys could never even imagine.

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#42

Post by locusm »

I grew up in a sleepy little town and I lived about 800M from the DOW plant that made 245T and agent orange components. Apparently surplus was dumped in and around the surrounding areas which as time went on became populated with people raising families. Proving the effects of chemical contamination is no easy feat. http://www.bhopal.net/worldmap/new_zealand_more.html

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#43

Post by cafard »

Luc wrote: post #8

Not just in the Baltic Sea. There's a dump of WWI poison gas grenades 2km off the Belgian coast, buried in the sand. You can see the marker buoys from the beach. Here's a little map of the area: http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/gasoorlog/paardenmarkt.html EDIT: Then there's the stuff on land. In Belgium they still recuperate between 100 and 200 tons of ammunition per year. Farmers post them by the side of the road for…

Some very pricy real estate in Washington, DC, the Spring Valley neighborhood, was once part of a chemical warfare station. When WW I ended, the staff followed the approved disposal method--dig a hole, roll in the shells, cover the hole. A lot of nasty stuff, mostly as I recall mustard gas shells, has been dug out and disposed of more properly over the last 30 years or so. But one reads now and then of concern about arsenic levels in the topsoil.

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#44

Post by refurb »

zokier wrote: post #27
danohuiginn wrote: post #13

The shelf life of most chemical weapons is fairly short -- and tends to be shorter the nastier they are. We're mainly talking mustard gas. Germany did use nerve gases tabun, sarin, and soman [1]. But nerve gases degrade after a period of a few weeks to a few years. I'm not sure what they degrade into, admittedly, and I doubt it's nice. Mustard gas lasts longer, but is also much less potent. Military use is about 1 to…

> Mustard gas lasts longer, but is also much less potent Maybe much less potent in killing instantly (ie in combat use), but what about long-term low-dosage exposure? > possibly going up the food chain (does that happen?) Bio-accumulation in general is very real thing, and imho the most worrisome aspect of this situation.

The issue with chemical weapons is that they are very reactive. Mustard gas would react with the organics floating around in the ocean very quickly.

As for the hydrolysis product of mustard gas, thiodiethanol, it's not very toxic. The MSDS claims acute toxicity in rates starts around 6.5g/kg. So a human would need to consume ~500g in order to see toxicity.

Also, thiodiethanol is quite reactive itself. It would likely be oxidized to the carboxylic acid. Wouldn't surprise me if bacteria could metabolize it.

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#45

Post by aestra »

toyg wrote: post #22
tomelders wrote: post #15

Is there something missing from the article or am I going mad? I don't understand how people came to the rational conclusion that it would be ok to dump thousands of tons of this stuff into the sea. It seems to me that people collectively agreed to create a guaranteed disaster.

Ecological concerns weren't really a thing until the '60s. There was a widespread belief that oceans could "take care" of everything; besides, in 30 years we'd all be flying to some other planet anyway.

Which is still the belief in some parts of the world as well as some people.

Silent Spring was published in 1962. It brought environmental problems to mainstream Americans. As a result of new awareness the EPA was created.

What seems "obvious" now might not have always been obvious.

Lets not forget there have been over 2,000 (known) nuclear weapons test in the world. 1032 done by the US alone, most in Nevada. It is well known that these tests released massive amounts of radiation that affects human health. Clouds carried the radiation across the United States into the Mid-West and Northeast and deposited it with rain.[1][2][3][4]

[1] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=390963

[2] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/220/4592/18.abstract?sid=e...

[3] http://www.ieer.org/latest/iodnart.html

[4] http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/fallout-from-nuc...

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#46

Post by saalweachter »

tomelders wrote: post #15

Is there something missing from the article or am I going mad? I don't understand how people came to the rational conclusion that it would be ok to dump thousands of tons of this stuff into the sea. It seems to me that people collectively agreed to create a guaranteed disaster.

For me the best line was later in the article:

> While this is worrying, some scientists argue that most of the containers will in all likelihood remain sealed for decades to come...

"Thus solving the problem once and for all." "But--" "ONCE AND FOR ALL."

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#47

Post by jeffreyrogers »

alister wrote: post #31

65,000 tonnes of chemical sounds humongous, but picturing the volume makes it look a lot smaller (not trying to diminish the potential gravity of the problem). Assume the chemicals have a density of 1 g/cm^3, the same as water, which seems reasonable for organic liquids and such. Then a cubic meter weighs a metric tonne. So 65,000 tonnes is the same as a cube that is 40 meters on a side. Another visualization: 1/5 of…

Maybe I just have a hard time reasoning about large numbers, but thinking about it terms of 1/5 of the capacity of a supertanker makes it seem much more serious to me than just reading the number 65,000 tonnes.

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#48

Post by jeffreyrogers »

morsch wrote: post #19

There used to be -- and really still is -- this cavalier attitude about dumping stuff into the sea, because it gets diluted so much. Disposing nuclear waste this way has only been banned since 1993[0]. And of course more recently, the ocean was where much of the pollution from the Fukushima incident was directed. Or take sea-faring ships, who dump both grey and black water (ie. untreated sewage) into the sea; I under…

I recall reading some proposal for dumping nuclear waste in the Marianas Trench. The rational had something to do with tectonic shifting eventually pushing the waste into the Earth's mantle.

Re: The ticking time-bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

#50

Post by gedrap »

sekasi wrote: post #41
grumblepeet wrote: post #20

My father, who was in the Royal Engineers at the end of WWII and for a few years after, was always worried about the "tons" of mustard gas and explosives that he and his colleagues were ordered to dump into the Irish Sea. He told me that some of the explosives were so unstable that they "sweated" nitroglycerine, and they used to run their finger down the sides of the explosives and flick it at each other to make smal…

Terrifying. But like you said, basically kids during the war forced to do a lot of things most modern day guys could never even imagine.

>>> most modern day guys could never even imagine.

Oh no need for that. Grab a local news paper, check the crime section. 'modern day guys' are not so smart and innocent, are they?

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