Yep. And who knows what the affects of that were. But I do not agree with the claim that this is interesting in this context as it seems irrelevant to the discussion.
> But I do not agree with the claim that this is interesting in this context as it seems irrelevant to the discussion
The discussion appears to be on the topic if we assume the topic is VX or nerve agents in general. I assume this is in line with your intention for posting a series of Wikipedia links on the subject in this thread, which I found both relevant and interesting.
The reasons why I suggested that the dumping of large quantities of nerve agents was an interesting fact is an inquisitive person may ask themselves -
- Is the product still down there under the ocean?
- What could be the environmental impact?
- What were they thinking at the time to dump such a hazardous material? Why didn't they use alternative means to destroy the material?
- Was this standard practise back then? If so what other deadly man made products are under the ocean?
- If they are still working to eradicate 5,950 tons of nerve agents in a single storage complex in Russia, how much did that country dump back during the cold war and would we actually ever find out? TFA says the 5,950 tons is only 14% of of Russian chemical weapons [1]
Those interesting issues could be their own post. For this one I think that interesting tangents would be a discussion about the magnitude of the lethal chemical weapons industries, and the possibility of large dumping operations allowing people to sequester small samples.
I think a lot of weapons are poorly thought out when it comes to the long term, such as land mines. However, since the purpose of chemical weapons is often to murder enough people that you can take their land, deterioration in a natural setting could be built in.
The article seems to suggest that became common practice in 1990, before when the parent is talking about. I'm not sure how you can claim it's inaccurate and that the parent should RTFA, it's a verbatim quote from the article isn't it?
I'm merely suggesting that the comment claims to be interesting and related but because it is not directly related to the subject it seems off-topic and irrelevant.
