Chemical weapons found

By Mark Browne
Saanich News
Nov 18 2005 

The Department of National Defence wants answers about an underwater chemical weapons dump located off the B.C. coast since the late 1940s. The military's Warfare Agent Disposal Project discovered the chemical weapons in June.

"The goal of that project was to identify land and marine sites where chemical warfare agents or biological warfare agents and their byproducts could exist today," said Judith Bennett, a DND environmental engineer who works on the project.

The other objective of the project concerns determining if any potential health and environmental risks exist at any of the sites. DND hired an independent contractor to conduct a nationwide review of Canada's history with chemical and biological warfare agents, Bennett said.

As well, the contractor set out to pinpoint any sites where chemical and biological agents might be located today.

"As a result we found land- and marine-based sites, and we found one off of the West Coast," she said.

A train had transported various types of ammunition and chemical agents including mustard gas from Canada's East Coast to the West Coast in 1947, Bennett said.

DND workers then dumped the chemical agents about 160 kilometres off the coast, she said.

So far, nothing has been retrieved from the site as the chemical agents are located about 25 metres below the ocean surface.

The immediate risk, in terms of health and the environment is "relatively low", Bennett said.

"But obviously we want to understand those risks a little better," she said.

A more formal risk assessment will be conducted on the site.
"We're going to try and look as best we can at the science and determine if there are risks to human health or the environment," she said, noting the risk assessment should take place in the near future.

DND officials determined that hiring an independent contractor to carry out the historical review of sites where chemical and biological agents was a wise move in terms of public perception, Bennett said.

"We wanted to keep it an independent and open process as much as we could," she said.

DND has informed the Canadian Hydrographic Service so the exact location of the site will be charted on a map so mariners will know where the chemical agents are located, Bennett said.
For more information on the Warfare Agent Disposal Project, visit www.wadproject.forces.gc.ca.