- In 1988, Soviet scientists were scrambling to destroy
their secret stockpile of anthrax, which they had manufactured in violation
of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). Alarmed at the
possibility
that the West was catching on and could call for inspections, the Soviets
moved quickly to cover their tracks. Scientists placed hundreds of tons
of the deadly pink powder in huge stainless steel canisters, doused it
with bleach to kill the spores, then sent the drums on a 1,000-mile train
ride to a remote island in the Aral Sea, a secret biological weapons
testing
site. There soldiers dumped the sludge into 11 shallow pits, poured in
more bleach, and buried the anthrax mixture under Vozrozhdeniye
Islandís
sandy soil.1
-
- Now, more than a decade later, the Aral Sea is shrinking,
and the sludge may be leaching into the sand. As the lake continues to
shrink, it is expected to eventually connect the island to the mainland,
linking the populationóand would-be proliferatorsóto a
dangerous
source of pathogens with special properties like enhanced virulence,
greater
environmental persistence, and antibiotic resistance.2
-
- Every major World War II combatant had a biological
weapons
program, and many of these countriesí field test sites remain
reservoirs
of disease. Although the programs may have ended, the pathogens they
released
persist in the test sitesí animal, bird, reptile, and insect
populations.
Unless extreme measures are taken to secure testing grounds, pathogens
once released into the environment will adapt to new hosts and spread
diseases
to new areas.
-
- A Serious Shortcoming
-
- In 1969 President Richard Nixon unilaterally renounced
the use of biological weapons and confined U.S. biowarfare R&D to
defensive
measures. The United States sponsored the BWC in 1972; it was ratified
by the Senate in 1975. To date, 162 countries have signed and 144 ratified
the treaty. Since it came into effect, numerous countries have been
reported
as havingóor developingóa biological weapons capability.
These countries include Russia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea,
China, Israel, Egypt, Cuba, Taiwan, Romania, Bulgaria, Pakistan, India,
and South Africa.3 With the exception of Israel, each of the named
countries
has signed and/or ratified the BWC. If these countries do have, or had,
clandestine BWC programs, it is also likely that they have secret field
test sites.
-
- Whether the mess at Vozrozhdeniye and other sites around
the world will be declared, investigated, and eventually remediated, could
be determined later this year. While the bioweapons treaty has been
relatively
successful in converting large-scale biological agent production
facilities,
such as the facility at Stepnogorsk, to civilian purposes, it has been
wholly unsuccessful in identifyingólet alone eliminatingóthe
environmental impacts associated with test sites like Vozrozhdeniye Island.
The treaty is silent on whether and how to identify, characterize, and
mitigate the environmental impacts and proliferation risks associated with
testing grounds. What types of field test sites, facilities, and activities
will have to be declared is a continuing point of contention among
negotiators
of the Ad Hoc Group of States Parties to the BWC. Much has been done to
stem the flow of materials, resources, and expertise to proliferant
countries,
but very little thought has been given to the continuing threats posed
by loosely safeguarded field test sites around the world. As it becomes
harder to obtain pathogenic materials from private and public sources,
terrorists or nations seeking to acquire a biological weapons capability
might be tempted to obtain pathogen seed stocks from wildlife collections
or other environmental sources of pathogenic materials.
-
- The declaration and investigation of past or current
field test sites needs to be considered by the Ad Hoc Group when they next
meet in Geneva (tentatively scheduled for mid-April) as part of the
inspection
regime being negotiated for ìdeclared sites,î because
declaration
is the first step toward ensuring treaty compliance. Until then, more
resources
need to be invested in global surveillance of exotic or unusual disease
outbreaks that might be the result of an accidental or intentional release
of pathogens from clandestine activities and facilities.The legacy of field
testing Field test sites were used to study the disease potential of an
assortment of agents, as well as dosages, methods of delivery, dispersal
characteristics, and whether an agent caused contagious disease. Bioweapons
programs tested and evaluated delivery systems that included aerial bombs,
bomb submunitions, aerial spray tanks, ballistic missile warheads,
artillery
shells, rockets, cruise missile warheads, and clandestine release and
delivery
systems. Often outwardly appearing to be ìpristineî examples
of undeveloped natural spaces, field test sites and their resident animal
populations are in fact permanent reservoirs of disease and a potential
source of agent materials that could easily be obtained by proliferant
nations and would-be terrorists. Consider the former Soviet, British, and
U.S. sites:
-
- The Former Soviet Union
-
- By far the largest biological weapons complex ever
created
was the Soviet Unionís. It had two main groups of facilities
involved
in R&D, production, and testing of biological weapons: a
military-controlled
system from the 1920s, and Biopreparat, a top-secret program under civilian
cover from 1972 until 1992.
-
- Ironically, the impetus for expanding the Soviet program
was the bioweapons treaty. The Soviets believed that the United States
would continue its offensive biowarfare program despite its official
renunciation.
As a result, the Soviet program not only caught up with but surpassed the
U.S. program to become the most sophisticated biological weapons program
in the world.4 Its size and scope were enormous: By the early 1990s more
than 60,000 people were involved in the R&D and production of
biological
weapons, stockpiling hundreds of tons of anthrax as well as dozens of tons
of other pathogens, including smallpox and plague.5
-
- Vozrozhdeniye served for decades as the Soviet
Unionís
major open-air bioweapons test site. The island, ìthe worldís
largest anthrax burial ground,î had a testing complex in its southern
part and a military settlement in the north (now in Uzbek and Kazakh
territory,
respectively).6 The test site was used to study dissemination patterns
of BW agent aerosols and methods to detect them, and the effective range
of aerosol bomblets filled with different types of biological agents.
Experiments
were conducted on livestock and lab animals. Scientists routinely released
deadly organisms into the airóplague, smallpox, brucellosis,
tularemia,
and of course, anthrax. Local fish kills, plague outbreaks, and other cases
of infectious disease have been blamed on testing, and despite almost a
decade of inactivity, the island remains a danger zone: Soil samples show
that some of the buried anthrax spores, and other pathogens, are still
viable and potentially deadly.7
-
- As the Aral Sea shrinks and the island grows, so do
threats
to public health and the likelihood of environmental disaster and
biological
weapons proliferation. Easier access to the island means pathogens still
contained on Vozrozhdeniye will more easily escape or be gathered for
proliferation
purposes. The drying of the Aral Sea has left a virtual land bridge to
the Uzbek mainland, making remediation a high-priority issue.
-
- Field testing ended in 1992 after Boris Yeltsin ordered
the closure of all offensive BW programs. Official records of what happened
on the island have either been ìmisplacedî or no longer exist.
Following Yeltsinís decree, the Russian government claimed that
within two to three years the island would be decontaminated and
transferred
to Kazakh control. Three years later, U.S. experts visited the island and
confirmed that the site had been dismantled and abandoned but did not
report
on the extent to which it had been decontaminated.
-
- Uzbek and Kazakh experts are extremely concerned that
the buried anthrax and other pathogens tested on the island will eventually
find their way to the mainland, either by way of disease-carrying animals
or accidental contamination of workers involved in activities such as oil
drilling, which could stir up long-dormant pathogens. The U.S. Cooperative
Threat Reduction program is currently negotiating a three-year, $6 million
agreement with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to dismantle the Stepnogorsk
anthrax
production facility, and to decontaminate the anthrax disposal pits and
complete the elimination of the facilities on the island.8 Given its size
and the formidable technical and financial challenges involved, it is
unlikely
that Vozrozhdeniye can be cleaned up without outside help.
-
- Britain
-
- The British biological warfare project began in February
1934. The British, ironically, became curious about the utility of germ
weapons as a result of an international treaty, the Geneva Protocol of
1925, aimed at banning their use. The Biological Department Porton (BDP),
just up the road from Stonehenge, was formed in October 1940 at Porton
Down for the development and testing of biological weapons. With the
assistance
of the United States and Canada, Britain focused its offensive research
on anti-livestock microbes that could be aerosolized and disseminated from
bursting munitions or sprays. BDP also studied the effects of inhaled
aerosols
on target and non-target organisms.9 By the summer of 1942, Porton Down
was ready to conduct field trials of anthrax in order to test the
practicability
of a biological bomb.
-
- Gruinard Island, a remote and rocky body a half-mile
off the northwest Scottish coast, was chosen for the first British anthrax
bomb tests. The island, which lies near the fishing village of Aultbea,
is a heather-covered outcrop of rock 300 feet high, 1.5 miles long, and
a mile wide. The first weapon tested on Gruinard used a modified 25-pound
chemical bomb, 18 inches high and 6 inches in diameter, loaded with a
ìbrown,
thick gruelî of concentrated anthrax spores. Filled with the slurry,
the bomb was ferried from the Scottish mainland to Gruinard, and then
dropped
from a Wellington bomber.10
-
- The Gruinard tests proved that germs could be produced,
transported, loaded into munitions, and exploded over target areas without
destroying the fragile living organisms that spread the infection. The
spores survived and tests continued, but the environment suffered.
Anthrax-laced
carcasses of sheep used as test subjects escaped from burial sites below
the islandís cliffs and floated to the mainland; at least one
outbreak
of anthrax among livestock on the Scottish mainland has been attributed
to activities on Gruinard. The British eventually abandoned the testing
of germ agents on the island.
-
- The United States
-
- The U.S. Biological Defense Research Program had its
origins in World War II. Begun in 1942 within the Chemical Warfare Service,
its primary mission was research on anthrax and botulism. The U.S. policy
for use of biological weapons during and shortly after World War II was
retaliatory only. From the end of World War II until the U.S. renunciation
of offensive biological weapons in 1969, the army developed both offensive
and defensive biological weapons capabilities.
-
- All U.S. field test sites were abandoned at the end of
the warówith the exception of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. From
1951 to 1969, hundreds, if not thousands, of open-air germ warfare tests
were conducted at Dugway on human volunteers and animal test subjects.11
Many of the aerosol dispersal tests during the Cold War introduced
non-indigenous
diseases (or increased the geographic range of indigenous diseases) to
Utah and surrounding states, including encephalomyelitis, Rocky Mountain
spotted fever, psittacosis, Q fever, anthrax, brucellosis, plague,
tularemia,
and hydatid disease, all of which are now considered endemic among the
native wildlife. In 1959 and 1960 an epidemic of Q fever was found among
Utah desert wildlife, but it is not known whether the disease was a result
of Dugwayís human and animal field trials, which began in the early
1950s. The Utah Health Department has also reported cases of Q fever among
humansóall subsequent to the 1955 human and animal field tests and
releases at Dugway.
-
- Testing was not limited to Dugway proper. At least two
dozen other sites nominally administered by the Dugway Proving
Groundsóincluding
unrestricted public landsówere used from the late 1940s through
the 1960s to test virtually everything in the armyís BW arsenal,
from wheat stem rust and rice blast to anthrax and plague. The army
deliberately
infected and released a variety of animals and insects to determine the
rate and extent of disease dispersal through native animal populations.
The armyís live-agent testing program, designed to include trials
at sea, in the tropics, and in the arctic, reached far beyond the borders
of the continental United States to include sites in Alaska, Central
America,
the Far East, the Caribbean, and over the Pacific Ocean. Aimed at determining animal, plant, and human reactions to exposure to putative BW agents, th
e
army allegedly conducted clandestine tests in South Korea, Liberia, Egypt,
and Okinawa.12 In 1981, troops training at the Jungle Warfare Training
Center at Fort Sherman, Panama, contracted the mosquito-borne disease
Venezuelan
equine encephalitis (VEE)óan outbreak that was eventually linked
to a military experiment conducted in 1970. As a consequence of this test,
VEE remains an endemic threat in certain areas of Central America.13
-
- Little progress has been made to date in identifying,
let alone containing or eliminating the contamination at Dugway, despite
the requirement to do so established in the Defense Environmental
Restoration
Act passed by Congress in 1986. Even less thought and attention has been
given to defining the nature and extent of the problems caused by tests
at Dugway and other sites around the world.
-
- Remediation?
-
- The environmental remediation challenges at test sites
are formidable, technically challenging, and resource intensive. In some
cases, testing grounds cannot be cleaned up using current technology and
may, therefore, remain disease reservoirs in perpetuity, essentially
becoming
ìnational sacrifice zones.î In fact, only one former test
site, Gruinard Island, has ever been ìofficiallyî cleaned
up. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to rid the island of anthrax,
in 1986 the British government finally eliminated the islandís
ìhot
spots,î using a mixture of formaldehyde and seawater.
-
- It is impossible to know if anyoneówhether a
ìrogue
stateî or a determined terroristóhas obtained pathogenic
materials
from any of the test sites. However, as Ken Alibek, former deputy chief
of Biopreparat, who testified last year before the U.S. House Armed
Services
Committee, suggests, ìA determined organization or individual could
obtain virulent strains of microorganisms from their natural
reservoirs.î14
This is why the situations on Vozrozhdeniye Island and other field testing
sites are so troubling.
-
- The work of the Ad Hoc Group of the States Parties to
the BWC, which began in January 1995 under the chairmanship of Tibor
TÛth
of Hungary, is nearing an end. The negotiators have reached general
agreement
on the protocolís main provisions of mandatory declarations,
declaration
follow-up procedures, and investigations of noncompliance concerns. But
the group has not yet added former test sites, whether offensive,
defensive,
or ìmixed,î in their definitions, facility declarations, or
inspection regimes, nor have they taken steps to secure potential pathogen
sources from would-be proliferators.
-
- Cleaning up and securing current and former field test
sites from would-be proliferators should be put on the agenda of the
Biological
Weapons Convention Review Conference when it convenes in Geneva in November
2001. Until then, increased resources need to be invested in human and
animal disease surveillance for novel or suspicious outbreaks of
agricultural
and human diseases in order to identify, characterize, contain, and
mitigate
the continuing threats posed by past or current BW testing
activities.
-
- Where is U.S. leadership?
-
- The United States spends billions on ìhomeland
defenseî programs to mitigate or minimize the human health
consequences
associated with potential biological attacks, but it appears to place very
low priority on international or domestic proliferation prevention
strategies,
including strengthening the BWC. The Federation of American Scientists
has observed that ìinstead of exercising creative leadership, the
United States has become the single greatest block to reaching agreement
on a protocol for verifying compliance with the international prohibitions
on BW.î15
-
- The problems inherent in verifying the intent of medical
research conducted under military auspices, and the difficulty of detecting
the development or use of biological weapons, have led to seemingly
intractable
disputes between states parties to the BWC. Some experts have suggested
that short notice, on-site inspections of declared facilities may help
to resolve these disputes. But inspections can only go so far in verifying
compliance with disarmament agreements.
-
- George W. Bushís national security team, while
expressing concerns about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
has said little about the ongoing negotiations to strengthen the BWC.
Equally
troubling is the Bush White Houseís silence regarding its support
of arms control agreements generally, and the BWC in particular.
-
- Last year marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
BWC. As insurance against the risk that nations will produce or use
biological
weapons, the international community over the past nine years has worked
to develop a framework to strengthen the treaty.
-
- We are at a crossroads. President Bush has an opportunity
to demonstrate true leadership by seeing the work of the Ad Hoc Group
through
to a successful conclusion. Should the group fail, the world could face
new horrors that would jeopardize not only U.S. national security
interests,
but those of the planet itself.
-
- ______________
-
- 1. Judith Miller, "At Bleak Asian Test Site, Killer
Germs Survive," New York Times, June 2, 1999, p. A1; Dana Lewis,
"Soviet
Germ War Legacy Lives On," NBC Nightly News, October 20-21,
1999.
-
- 2. Ibid.
-
- 3. Defense Nuclear Agency, "Biological Weapons
Proliferation,"
(Ft. Detrick, MD: U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases,
April 1994), p. 49; Statement of Rear Adm. Lowell Jacoby, Director of
Intelligence,
Joint Staff, J2, before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, on
the "Anthrax Biological Warfare Threat," April 13, 2000.
-
- 4. Ken Alibek, Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of
the Largest Covert Biological Weapos Program in the World, (New York:
Random
House, 1999); Ken Alibek, "Behind the Mask: Biological Warfare,"
Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy Perspective, vol.
IX, no. 1, September/October 1998.
-
- 5. For personnel numbers, see Milton Leitenberg,
"The
Conversion of Biological Warfare Research and Development Facilities to
Peaceful Uses," Control of Dual-Threat Agents: The Vaccines for Peace
Programme, SIPRI Chemical and Biological Warfare Series No. 15 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,
1994).
-
- 6. Judith Miller, "At Bleak Asian Test Site, Killer
Germs Survive."
-
- 7. Ibid.
-
- 8. E. Levine, Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
personal
communication, December 2000.
-
- 9. http://www.d
era.gov.uk/html/whoweare/history/porton_down.htm
-
- 10. Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, A Higher Form of
Killing: The Secret Story of Chemical and Biological Warfare, (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1982), p. 71.
-
- 11. Joe Bauman, "Cold War Left Utah a Contaminated
Legacy," Deseret News, February 28, 1998, p. A1. For number of tests
conducted at the Dugway Proving Grounds, see also Charles Piller and Keith
R.Yamamoto, Gene Wars: Military Control Over the New Genetic Technologies,
(New York: Beech Tree Books, 1988).
-
- 12. Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese
Biological
Warfare, 1932-45, and the American Cover-Up, (London: Routledge, 1994),
p. 232.
-
- 13. "Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis: Report of an
Outbreak Associated with Jungle Exposure," Walter Reed Army Institute
of Research, November 1984.
-
- 14. Ken Alibek, testimony before the Special Oversight
Panel on Terrorism, House Armed Services Committee, 106th Congress, 2nd
session, May 23, 2000.
-
- 15. Federation of American Scientists, "Controlling
Biological Weapons: It's Time for Action," Public Interest Report,
vol. 53, no. 5, September/October 2000. ___
-
-
-
- Eileen Choffnes is a senior scientist with the
Environmental Protection Agency. From 1988ñ93 she served as staff
scientist to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, working on chemical
and biological arms control issues. The views contained in this article
are her own.
-
-
-
- ©2001 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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