Green Warriors: The Toxic Legacy of Warfare

Up until the 2000s, France submerged, buried or destroyed thousands of tonnes of ammunition across a number of territories and deep in lakes and seas. Long forgotten, these rubbish heaps now release pollution that is toxic, carcinogenic, or likely to cause genetic malformations.

For a year, with the help of French and German scientists, the Green Warriors team investigated the consequences of these buried weapons. In the Grand-Est and Hauts-de-France regions, journalists took twenty samples of tap water from areas surrounding old storage and destruction sites, or military sites still in operation. Seventeen of them contained explosive residues, two of them at levels exceeding the US health agency’s recommendations for RDX (an explosive compound also known as cyclonite) – the only existing standard for explosives in drinking water.

In others samples taken from the lake Gérardmer in Vosges, high levels of TNT were found near munition buried at the end of the First World War. And yet, the lake is regularly used by the neighbouring villages to top up their water supply. In samples taken from Lake Gérardmer in the Vosges, high levels of TNT were found near munitions dumped at the end of the First World War. The results of the investigation were picked up by the media and relayed by mayors, regional councillors and even the Senate, to push the government to take action.

Pollution from buried weapons and ammunition has already claimed victims in Europe. In Italy, in Sardinia, the landscape and the health of some inhabitants have been affected by exercises classified as ‘defence secrets’ in NATO’s largest military test camp. In recent decades, cancers and malformations have multiplied in the surrounding villages. Samples taken by the journalists revealed the presence of TNT, titanium and high levels of lead.