A National Public Radio report in 2009 showed that all containers had corroded to release their contents into the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Army used similar dump sites off Florida, Massachusetts, Virginia, Mississippi, Hawaii, South Carolina and Alaska--revealed millions of pounds of nerve gas, mustard gas, munitions, Lewisite, phosgene and other deadly chemicals jettisoned into the Atlantic and Pacific. Other countries jettisoned their chemicals into the Indian, Arctic and Southern Oceans. (Source: " A generation of indiscriminate dumping" 1944 to 1970, http://www.dailypress.com/media/acrobat/2005-10/20226301.pdf)
From, Our Dying Oceans, "What New York City and surrounding municipalities are doing is similar to the stories of injury to ocean ecology worldwide. Since 1987, barges carrying all of the sewage sludge from New York City, two adjoining New York counties and six New Jersey counties have dumped about 24,250 tons of wastes every day --that's eight million tons a year-- into the last place in the U.S. where ocean dumping is still allowed, a 100-square-mile area of ocean located 106 miles offshore of Cape May, New Jersey, called the 106 Deepwater Municipal Sludge Site. The wastes include substantial amounts of industrial and household toxic chemicals. A 1983 report by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates the "area of influence" of toxic wastes deposited at this dumpsite at 46,000 square miles. The area is a spawning ground for about 200 species of fish, and is frequented by dolphins, whales and turtles, some species of which are already considered to be endangered."
(Source: http://www.rainbowbody.net/Finalempire/FEchap6.htm)
Debbie Wynn, a Rhode Island fisherman's wife, told In These Times newspaper: "My husband has been lobstering 17 years and we've never seen anything like this. There's a yellow scum floating on the surface 150 to 175 miles away from the dumpsite itself, and all the shellfish have burn spots from exposure to heavy metals. I'm so scared. The meat isn't contaminated, but these creatures can't survive without their shells. And the pollution affects crabs and lobsters first, then clams and scallops, then goes into the fish."
"Tilefish caught off New Jersey in 1988 were suffering epidemics of fin rot and lesions. In the summer of 1987, an unexplained virus killed over 1,000 plus of the 6,000 to 8,000 dolphins believed to inhabit the waters north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. In November and December of that year, about two dozen whales were found beached, mostly near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Eighty-five percent of ocean pollution originates on land. The run-off of heavy metals from the continents into the oceans now averages two and one half times the natural background level for mercury, 4x for manganese, 12x for zinc, 12x for copper, 12x for lead, 30x for antinomy, and 80 times the background level for phosphorus. Toxic wastes have been found in the deepest part of the ocean and in most ocean habitats."
The late Jacques Cousteau pointed out that there is already DDT in the livers of the penguins of Antarctica and that while rivers and semi-enclosed seas are in worse shape than the oceans today, that would not long remain the case.
Even more disconcerting, I investigated ONLY the USA dumping figures. If we look across the planet, we will find other horrific problems such as "dead zones" from poisoned rivers.
For example, the Mississippi River, 2,552 miles long, drains most of the middle of the United States. Today, it carries endless thousands of chemicals from sewage, fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, used oil, acid rain, plastics and worse. At its mouth, you will find a 10,000 square mile dead zone. That means higher forms of sea life vacated while only simple life forms continue--albeit contaminated beyond repair.
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