Wednesday, November 16, 2005 · Last updated 6:13 a.m. PT
Chemical weapons dump off Vancouver Island studied
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- A safety assessment is being made of a newly revealed chemical weapons dump that reportedly contains mustard gas and phosgene off the west coast of Vancouver Island, officials said.
Judith Bennett, an environmental engineer in Canada's Department of National Defense, said Tuesday the deadly chemicals and ammunition were dumped in about 8,000 feet of water 100 miles off the coast and at one of two East Coast sites after World War II.
One of the Atlantic sites is off Sable Island, roughly 200 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the other involves a Canadian ship containing chemical warfare agents that was sunk by a German U-boat. The location of the sunken ship was not immediately available.
The West Coast site was identified through a review of military archives which showed the ammunition and chemical warfare agents were taken across Canada by train for disposal, Bennett said.
All three sites are under study for potential risks to the public as part of Canada's Warfare Agent Disposal Project, which began a couple of years ago, she said.
Mustard gas, also known as yperite, was first used by the German army in 1917 during World War I and was the most lethal poisonous chemicals to be used in that war.
Phosgene, a choking agent that also was responsible for many deaths in World War I, is used in industry to produce pesticides and other chemical products.The quantity of weaponry that was dumped remains unknown, Bennett said.
"Warfare agents could have been either in canister form or weaponized when they were dumped," she added.
In weaponized form, the chemicals would be contained in a device that could be detonated, she said.
When the Defense Department's risk assessment is completed, a decision will be made on whether to try to find, examine and retrieve the dumped munitions or leave them in place, Bennett said.