[CPEO-MEF] CHEMWEAPONS, GLOBAL: "Scientist coalition warns of environmental threat from Syrian chemical weapons disposal in the Med"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Scientist coalition warns of environmental threat from Syrian  
chemical weapons disposal in the Med

Malta Independent
February 23, 2014

An international operation to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons  
stockpile at sea was described as a major environmental threat to the  
Mediterranean this week.  As a UN-backed plan to treat and dispose of  
Syria’s chemical weapons in the Mediterranean in relatively close  
proximity to Malta draws near, a coalition of marine science experts  
and environmental non-governmental groups led by the Archipelagos  
Institute of Marine Conservation in Greece said on Tuesday that the  
plan to neutralize Syria’s chemical stockpile aboard a ship in the  
Mediterranean was “risky and unprecedented”.

Under Syria’s agreement with the UN Security Council, its entire  
chemical arsenal is to be eliminated by 30 June – a goal that is now  
becoming increasingly unlikely after Damascus missed a deadline this  
month to surrender its entire stockpile of chemical weapons.

In a process to be supervised by the Organisation for the Prohibition  
of Chemical Weapons and financially backed by the European Union, a  
hydrolysis system aboard a US cargo ship sailing in international  
waters between Crete and Sicily will use heated water mixed with  
other chemicals to neutralize the lethal agents, producing sludge  
similar to industrial toxic waste.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-02-23/news/scientist- 
coalition-warns-of-environmental-threat-from-syrian-chemical-weapons- 
disposal-in-the-med-4035248130/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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