FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
November 19, 2005
HONOLULU -- U.S. Rep. Ed Case said the Army
told him Thursday that it didn't know whether any of the weapons it dumped
in waters off Hawaii decades ago were left near the shoreline.
Case said the deputy assistant Army secretary in charge of environmental
issues told him the service would search its records to find out. Case said
he asked the Army to locate and properly dispose of the weapons.
The Daily Press reported in October that the Army dumped 64 million pounds
of nerve and mustard agents into the ocean, along with 400,000 chemical-filled
bombs, land mines and rockets. Chemical weapons were dumped in at least 26
locations off the coast of 11 states - six East Coast states, two on the
Gulf Coast, California, Alaska and Hawaii.
Three artillery shells filled with mustard gas were dredged off the coast
of New Jersey last summer, pulled up from a dump zone. Three Air Force bomb
disposal technicians were burned when dismantling a shell.
"I impressed on (him) how important I felt it was to immediately complete
the identification of potential sites in Hawaii," Case said by telephone
from Washington, D.C. "Not only from a public safety perspective but from
the perspective of maintaining the good relationship that the military and
civilian populations in Hawaii have enjoyed."
Case, D-Hawaii, said a 2001 study of Army records showed the service disposed
of chemical weapons in 73 sites around the world from World War I to the
early 1970s - including three spots off Hawaii.
The Army report said some materials were deposited somewhere off Pearl Harbor
and others were dumped five miles off Oahu in 1944.
In the last case - also from 1944 - the Army loaded the weapons onto a ship
in Waianae and dumped them at an unknown offshore location.
"The specific concern, immediate concern is the near shore environment -
where people swim, where they anchor their boats, where they go about life.
And that we don't know," Case said.
Case said information about the dumped weapons was now attracting attention
because fishermen along the East Coast have been pulling up munitions when
they dredge clam beds.
Case said he plans to press the Pentagon to request more funds for munitions
disposal in next fiscal year's budget.
He added he felt the military was taking the matter seriously.
The Army public affairs office in Washington, D.C., had no immediate comment
on where it dumped chemical weapons off Hawaii.
