ABERDEEN, Md. -- A vintage artillery shell containing mustard agent will be destroyed in Delaware rather than be transported to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland for testing, Army officials said.
Officials initially had said the barnacle-encrusted, World War I-era shell dredged up off the Atlantic Coast last year could help the military learn what effect the marine environment has had on millions of pounds of chemical weapons dumped into the ocean before 1970.
But some Aberdeen-area residents were wary of the Maryland base bringing
in more mustard agent just months after it had eliminated a troublesome stockpile
of the toxic substance, The (Baltimore) Sun reported.
An Army spokesman said senior Pentagon officials reviewed the benefits
of testing the shell found at a Delaware clam processing plant and decided
against moving it to the proving ground. The shell instead will be destroyed
in a mobile explosive destruction chamber from the base.
In recent years, scores of unexploded shells have been found mixed in with crushed clamshells used to pave driveways and parking lots in Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore.
Officials have traced the ordnance to loads of clams dredged from the ocean floor and delivered to the Seawatch International plant in Milford.