Panama Update Archives
TEST TUBE REPUBLIC: Chemical Weapons Tests in Panama and U.S. Responsibility
V. Disposal of Chemical Munitions
Stockpiled munitions, such as those stored at eight continental U.S. sites and on Kalama Island in the Pacific, are kept in a controlled, contained manner where they can be continuously monitored and re-packaged if a munition is in danger of leaking. Non-stockpiled weapons are those weapons which are no longer part of the stockpile. They have not been contained or monitored, nor have they been kept safely away from public access areas. Non-stockpile weapons also include chemical agents that have contaminated land or water even though a munition is no longer present.
All chemical munitions, like conventional munitions, include a certain number of duds -- that is, munitions that are fired or dropped but do not detonate. On impact areas, these unexploded ordnance (UXO) are typically what cause accidents to persons who unsuspectingly pick up, step on or play with them. According to one explosives expert, the rule of thumb in the community of explosives disposal professionals is a ten percent dud rate.55
On San Jose Island, thousands of chemical mortars and bombs were fired or dropped into eleven target areas, mostly on the north side of the island. For the 18 tests for which we have obtained records, 4,397 mortars and bombs were used. If other tests averaged the same number of munitions fired or dropped, it would mean that 31,267 chemical munitions were used on San Jose. At a dud rate of ten percent, that would leave 3,126 chemical UXO on San Jose Island.
Regarding stockpiled munitions, the San Jose post diary records a barge shipment which took chemical munitions out to sea on March 11, 1947.
Barge left SJP 0645 with 12 EM [enlisted men] taking a load of munitions out to sea to be destroyed. Tug towed barge out approximately 30 miles before munitions were destroyed. Party returned SJP approximately 2345.56
Another barge-load of munitions was dumped at sea on August 19, 1947.The military's evacuation of the San Jose Project in early 1948 was carried out with haste, on a five-week deadline received from headquarters. "Beating the deadline was not accomplished by working union hours," two officers wrote sardonically.57 Another barge was loaded with chemical munitions which were then dumped at sea on January 12, 1948.
Again, the post diary: "Technical munitions to be disposed of at sea in accord with evacuation instructions." The following morning, the diarist added: "Barge #1897 towed by tug ST872 returned after accomplishing mission of dumping munitions at sea, Barge returned this Project ETA 0500R."58
A summary of the San Jose Project written by the military for the Carter White House in 1979 said that "known munitions were destroyed and detoxified" when the island was evacuated. But the reported added: "In some tests, complete functioning of munitions could not be verified because of the jungle and marsh environment."59 In other words, the United States was aware in the 1970s that chemical munitions remained on the land at San Jose Island.
Chemical munitions which the military still hoped to use were moved into the Canal Zone. Two of the project's officers wrote:
The materiel owned by San Jose was stored wherever space could be found. Some of it was placed in the basements of barracks, more in an abandoned motor pool, and a toxic yard was established at the mouth of the Chagres River on the Fort Sherman Reservation.60
They did not elaborate on this alarming declaration. The toxic materials at Fort Sherman were stored there for "rehabilitation," according to a later account, which may have meant leaks from munitions in need of repair.61 We have found no records documenting what the United States did with chemical bombs stored at Rio Hato, which also was evacuated in January 1948.
The San Jose Project found a new home on St. Thomas of the Virgin Islands in April 1948. Twenty-seven soldiers who had been stationed at Fort Sherman "on Technical Activities" joined the project on May 14, and were followed on May 21 and May 26 with tugs from Panama towing three barges of "Technical Equipment," often a euphemism for munitions.62Based on National Archives documents that he saw while working for military contractor PRC on a study of the active ranges in Panama, bomb expert Rick Stauber asserts that the United States established a chemical burial site at France Field in the 1930s. The documents Stauber found indicated that 30-lb bombs that leaked mustard were involved, and that there were both land burial and sea dumping of these munitions. According to Stauber, the same documents stated that a storage magazine at France Field had been contaminated by leakage of mustard agent.63
A version of this statement was featured on the front page of a Panamanian newspaper on April 13, 1998.64 In an implicit admission of this claim, the Department of Defense told officials of Panama's Interoceanic Region Authority (ARI) that toxic gases buried at France Field have dissipated. A published account of this admission is worth quoting:
Information in an official document emphasizes that a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense, whose identity was not disclosed, informed the ARI that there is no danger of contamination by toxic gases in France Field, since the materials buried there by U.S. troops in World War II have already dissipated.According to the report, before the transfer of the area in 1979, when the Panama Canal Treaties entered into force, the U.S. Defense Department evaluated the need to remove the airstrip of the then-existing airport to remove the material buried there in the 1940s.
But the U.S. Defense Department experts concluded that the effort was not justified, since the gases in question did not represent then or now any risk, considering that their useful life is less than ten years.65
The Army has also implicitly recognized that there are chemical burial sites in Panama by refusing to release part of a document listing "suspected overseas burial sites" produced by the U.S. Army Chemical and Biological Command in 1993. If there were no burial sites of chemical agent or munitions in Panama, the Command presumably would have said so in declining to release the document. However, even without the list of burial sites, the locations may eventually be uncovered by souvenir seekers, erosion and development.As noted earlier, Chiva Chiva Trail was a demolition and disposal site for toxic munitions from 1952 to 1956.
Laboratory tests using chemical weapons, conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, pose additional questions about disposal of the agents. In Panama, "there could be the situation where laboratory wastes, such as glass vials, could be present in the environment," according to toxicologist Theodore Henry. "For instance, an intact glass vial of VX was found in the ground at [Aberdeen Proving Ground]. Such lab wastes are more sensitive to environmental release, and cannot be detected from the surface, as... munitions [can]."66
For nerve agent tests from 1964 to 1968, disposal included destruction of VX on-site by putting it in water in a 55-gallon drum, and adding sodium hydroxide and ethanol until the mix became a solution of sodium hydroxide. If VX mines were detonated for tests while still filled with live agent, this would have contaminated an area for several weeks, before the agent hydrolyzed into relatively harmless compounds. During those weeks, however, the area would have been highly dangerous for people.
U.S. Army South's Colonel Michael DeBow, who is responsible for carrying out the military's base clean-up programs in Panama, flatly told a Panamanian journalist that chemical munitions had not been used on the currently active firing ranges, and that "really" the Panamanian government should not be worried. But he added that "if there is a specific concern, we can explore and we are open to doing it."67 Similar claims made about Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Maryland, later proved to be erroneous. For years, nearby citizens were told that no chemical rounds had been fired on Aberdeen Peninsula, until a new a records search showed that they had indeed been fired on Aberdeen Peninsula.68
TEST TUBE REPUBLIC: Chemical Weapons Tests in Panama and U.S. Responsibility
I. Introduction
II. Brief History of Chemical Weapons Programs in Panama
III. Storage of Chemical Agents and Munitions
IV. Chemical Weapons Tests
V. Disposal of Chemical Agents and Munitions
VI. Potential Long-Term Dangers Posed by Abandoned Chemical
Weapons
VII. Information and Documents on Chemical Weapons: The
U.S. Record
VIII. Legal Obligations
IX. Alleged development of biological agents in Panama
X. Conclusions and Recommendations
Appendices
Endnotes
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