News reports out of Reno, NV describe over 120 farm workers being treated at local medical facilities for exposure to chloropicrin, an agricultural chemical that was used as a chemical warfare agent in World War I. The chemical had been spread on a field on Monday and a Wednesday temperature inversion kept the fumes close enough to the ground that workers in an adjacent field were overcome by the fumes; at least two were unconscious but breathing when emergency personnel arrived at the scene.
According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Chloropicrin (CCl3NO2) boils at 112° C with partial decomposition to phosgene and nitrosyl chloride. According to a Cornell University Pesticide Profile the half life in air-sunlight is 20 days and the product is normally provided in cylinders or tanks that can be pressurized. According to E-Medicine.com and exposure level of 1 ppm (in the air) causes eye irritation, 4 ppm may incapacitate, and 20 ppm causes lung damage. While this chemical would probably not produce a huge number of deaths in a terrorist attack, the victims would hurt be badly and require extensive treatment for their wounds. Clean up would not be easy. Chloropicrin sounds like a good terrorist chemical weapon.
All in all it is easy to see why DHS has this chemical listed in the chemical weapons section of the Top Screen with no minimum level listed for the Screening Threshold Quantity (STQ) in the proposed Appendix A to 6 CFR part 27. How many farmers or agricultural suppliers holding this material were notified by mail when the June 2007 notifications went out to the 50 facilities that are, to date, the only facilities required to submit Top Screen information; almost certainly none. The users and probably manufacturers of Chloropicrin will not be required to start the CFATS process until Appendix A is approved. Isn’t it about time that this Appendix gets the required political approval?
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