OCEAN DUMPING OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS

From World War I until the 1970s, dumping of chemical weapons at sea was the accepted practice for disposal. Little documentation of this practice can be found before the mid-1940s. In 1943, mustard (H) was released into the waters of Bari harbor in Italy. Since the end of World War II, ocean dumping has occurred in many areas, including the Baltic Sea, around Japan, in the Adriatic Sea near Bari, and in the coastal waters of the United States. During the period 1945-1948, The US scuttled at sea approximately 32,000 tons of captured German chemical weapons. The British dumped approximately 175,000 tons of chemical weapons at sea, with 100,000 tons coming from Scotland and the balance from the captured German stockpile. During 1955-56, the British dumped a further 17,000 tons of captured German munitions. During 1956-1957, the British disposed of the remainder of their stockpile of chemical weapons, 8,000 tons of World War II vintage mustard and phosgene munitions.¹ News reports indicate that the ocean dumping in the 1950s occurred in the Irish Sea; some of the British dumps in the late 1940s may have occurred in the North Sea. The Adriatic, Baltic, and Japanese ocean dumps have provided evidence of the persistence of mustard under water.

EUROPE:

The Baltic 

Numerical Prediction of Chemical Pollution Transport and Dispersal in the Baltic Sea

At the end of World War II, large chemical munitions stores were discovered in Germany and Japan. From 1946-1947, an estimated 50,000-150,000 tons of chemical munitions were dumped in the Baltic Sea. The area of the largest dumping activities was the Bornholm basins, 15 miles northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm.⁵

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Bari Harbor and the Adriatic

An American freighter, the S.S. John Harvey, carried 2,000 M47A1 bombs, each containing 60 to 70 pounds of sulfur mustard (H) bombs and an unknown quantity of high explosives when it was attacked during a German raid on Bari, Italy, at 7:30 PM on 2 December 1943. Shortly after 8 PM, a nearby oil tanker blew up, and a few minutes later the John Harvey exploded and sank in Bari Harbor, killing all aboard in the blast.¹ One source indicates that subsequent exposure to mustard caused 630 serious military cases and killed over one thousand Italian civilians within a few days.² A recent U.S. government briefing counts 83 killed and 534 wounded as the toll from mustard during the Bari raid.³ Shortly after the end of World War II, the United States dumped unspecified quantities of phosgene, hydrogen cyanide, and cyanogen chloride bombs in the Adriatic Sea "off the Island of Ischia, near Bari,"* from 12 October to 5 November 1945 and from 1-15 December 1945. Unspecified quantities of mustard and/or Lewisite bombs were dumped at the same site from 1-23 April 1946.³ From 1946 to 1997, medical researchers at the University of Bari detected over 230 cases of exposure to mustard in the Adriatic Sea, most recently in June 1997; most of the cases have been among Apulian trawler fishermen. ⁴ Dr. Sivo and Dr. Lobuono of the University of Bari have kindly provided data from their studies on the continuing exposure of fisherman to mustard.

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*This notation comes from unpublished US government records. There is a relatively well known Island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, and at this point it is unclear whether (a) there is another Island of Ischia off Bari, (b) the reference to the Island of Ischia is mistaken, or (c) the dumping described in these records took place in the Bay of Naples rather than in the Adriatic and documentation for the Adriatic dumping has not yet been located.