Despite Treaty, Chemical Weapon Stockpiles Still a Widespread Threat

When mustard gas begins to infiltrate the body, eyes water and the throat burns while disorientation, panic anxiety set in as you choke on a pungent garlic-tinged cloud. That’s a picnic compared to the effects of nerve agents, which cause uncontrollable salivation and urination, convulsions and eventual death by asphyxiation.

Weaponized agents like these and many more sit collecting dust in the world’s bunkers and military installations. Though a treaty involving 188 of 194 of the world’s countries seeks to destroy these stockpiles, many of the delay chemical weapons remain. It’s a vulnerability that ranges from the threat of terrorists acquiring these weapons, to contamination of environments due to caustic degeneration of the agents and containers.

Even though 90% of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile has been eliminated, hundreds of tons of deadly chemical depots continue to threaten our species. Most recently, worries have grown over the possibility that Syria could put its chemical arsenal in the wrong hands given the instability in that country.

Even if these weapons are never deployed, the risk of them leaking and contaminating environments remains high. To get a sense of how volatile these chemicals are, consider the experience of the Desert Chemical Depot in Utah:

The rusting weapons had seals that often leaked, sounding alarms. It began almost routine for workers in gowns and breathing masks to have to enter bunkers to package the “leakers.” In 2002, a pipefitter was exposed to nerve agent but recovered and was back on the job the next day. Two years earlier, the incinerator was forced to shut down for a summer after a drop of GB nerve agent escaped the emissions stack, which got a new safety valve.

Though the 1997 treaty to eliminate chemical weapons was and continues to be a noble, brave effort, it by no means spells the end of the threat. Thankfully, we will probably never see numbers like 90,000, which was the number of troops killed by chemical weapons on the battlefields of World War I. But until each and every one of these stockpiles is destroyed, we will continue to be at risk to an incredibly nasty and tortuous way to die.