Great article - I’m fascinated by pollution for some reason.<p>I recently spent time living near Los Alamos, NM. The physicists and nuclear chemists surely outdid WW1 in their legacy of environmental devastation. Check out Acid Canyon, a popular recreation area in the middle of Los Alamos. If I recall, they opened this place to the public for recreation in 1962, then a few years later barrels containing plutonium waste surfaced after a heavy rain. Then they opened it again.<p><a href="http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/site/4-acid-pueblo-canyon/" rel="nofollow">http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/site/4-acid-pueblo-canyo...</a><p><a href="http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/doublestandard.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nuclearactive.org/docs/doublestandard.html</a><p><a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/los-alamos-will-never-be-clean/article_a3cc7ce1-8af0-5113-8f38-5d4aa673fd7a.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/los-alamos-...</a><p>I guess at some point they stopped dumping untreated liquid plutonium waste there. That was a good move. The wastewater facility for the entire Natl Lab for decades that processed all of the toxic chemical, metal and nuclear waste discharged the water untreated until the 60s. There are dozens of uninventoried dump sites and things like full closets in basements with uranium that nobody has looked at in a couple decades. Oh, and people who work there suggested to me that all the public info made available is falsified for one reason or another.<p>DP Rd and TA-21, site of first plutonium machining facility, and the wastewater ‘treatment’ (meaning untreated discharge) facility, is another interesting one. They’re currently environmentally remediating the area for homes.
Chemical weapons, beyond their psychological effect, were not a game changer for either side in WW1. Effective countermeasures were developed rather quickly and, in any case, a breakthrough effected by poison gas could not be easily exploited.<p>Although not mentioned in the article, the main contribution of chemists to WW1 was almost certainly the Haber-Bosch process [1]. It allowed Germany to produce ammo and explosives even while cut off from Chilean saltpeter [2] and also sustained its agriculture in the absence of fertilizer imports. Without the Haber-Bosch process Germany could have afforded only a very short war [3]. It's still immensely important today as it produces over half of the nutrient received by the world's crops [4].<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31090757" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31090757</a><p>[3] <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/02/03/118255924.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/02/03/118...</a><p>[4] <a href="http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/smil-article-worldagriculture.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/smil-article-w...</a>
For an interesting take on this, I'd recommend reading <i>The Alchemy of Air</i>.<p>It's not specifically about either of the world wars. It's about the work that led to the discovery of the Haber-Bosch process that makes it possible to produce ammonia by extracting nitrogen from the atmosphere.<p>This was a hugely valuable discovery - and the companies that formed as a result ended up having a significant impact on both wars.<p>The book talks about how the German chemical industry formed, how the discovery of the Haber-Bosch process affected the industry, how Fritz Haber helped lead Germany's chemical weapons development during WW1, and how the major chemical companies were eventually merged to form IG Farben, which was responsible for some pretty horrible things during WW2.
Wow I had no idea that chemical weapons were tested in the suburbs of DC, wild.<p>I’m kind of surprised that the article didn’t talk about the zone rouge in France. If you haven’t heard of it it’s worth checking out. Basically it’s whole regions of France that were contaminated by munitions and chemicals in WW1. The area is uninhabitable and some regions are devoid of life. It should be a memorial to the folly of men and the devastation of war.
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge</a>
Nice read, in the UK there's an island off the coast of Scotland called Gruinard Isle which was contaminated with Anthrax for the best part of 40 years, until it was cleaned up in the 80s.<p>Still wouldn't fancy walking around it.