Up until 1970, the United States discarded an approximated 17,000 lots of unspent chemical weapons from World War I and II off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean– which disposal choice continues to haunt business fishing operations.

In a short article released today in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, health authorities from New Jersey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that there were at least 3 occurrences of business fishing teams dredging up unsafe chemical warfare munitions (CWMs) off the coast of New Jersey in between 2016 and 2023.

The 3 events exposed a minimum of 6 team members to mustard representative, which triggers blistering chemical burns on skin and mucous membranes. (An example of these kinds of burns can be seen here, however be cautioned, the image is graphic.) One team member needed over night treatment in an emergency situation department for breathing distress and second-degree blistering burns. Another was burned so severely that they were hospitalized in a burn center and needed skin grafting and physical treatment.

“Recovered CWMs continue to present employee and food security threats. Since of ocean drift, storms, and offshore markets, sea-disposed CWMs places are mostly unidentified and possibly far from their initially recorded dump website,” the health authorities compose.

It’s not the very first such report in MMWR. In 2013, federal health authorities reported another 3 occurrences in the mid-Atlantic. The report kept in mind that clam anglers in Delaware Bay “informed private investigators that they consistently recuperate munitions that frequently ‘smell like garlic,’ a possible sign of the existence of a chemical representative.”

In the 3 freshly reported occurrences, one happened in 2016 off the coast of Atlantic City when a team was digging up for clams. A munition was brought onboard on a conveyor belt. A team member saw it and tossed it overboard, however it was consequently the member who established arm burns needing skin grafting. Beyond the health toll, a hold-up in interacting the occurrence permitted the clams dug up together with the munition to move into production. This caused a recall of 192 cases of clam chowder and the damage of 704 cases of clams.