Comment by Animats
15 hours ago
France has a much worse disposal problem. They're still cleaning up unexploded WWI artillery shells. That's been going on steadily for a century, and there are still large keep-out zones. Estimated completion in another century.
Here in the states, the main WWI issues are stockpiles of chemical weapons that were buried and then forgotten about. They pop up from time to time, and we've only recently started cleaning them up. Ironically, the ones that were stored somewhat deliberately with safety in mind end up being some of the worst to dispose of, because the poorly-stored ones can be largely thrown into a blast-resistant washing machine, popped open with a small charge, and then scrubbed with all sorts of fun chemicals to neutralize the toxins.
Fun fact: One of the best analogs available for phosgene that's been sitting in cold water for a hundred years is Wintergreen DOTS candy, if you can keep the engineers and military brass from eating all of them.
I'm pretty sure if you've seen figures in the 100 year range, that's something that was largely aspirational, put out after the 100 year anniversary of the armistice. Some of the experts in France still say over 500 years at the current rate of remediation.
Surely, these rouge zones can be turned back into useable areas- after the bombs are defused. If there was lots of lead, then the produce from those areas would be poisonous though..
Lead, mercury, arsenic... Some places will never be settled again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge
(to top that some ammo dumps were simply dumped in holes in the ground at the end of the war and are slowly diffusing there toxic compounds via under ground rivers)
How do we as a species communicate for the next ten thousand years, that these places are poisoned and dangerous? The answer- statues of Goatse..
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