WMD dumped into the oceans

During World War 1 and 2, the allied forces and Germany both produced hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical weapons, such as Mustard Gas. After the war, these were simply put into barrels and dumped into the ocean.

Dumped onto the ocean floor. I saw a documentary on CBC's excellent show, The Passionate Eye, that dealt with this issue. All around the world, there are millions of tons of chemical weapons sitting on the ocean floor in rusting barrels. These dumping sites are not far from land, and occur where fishing is carried out today. Examples are Bari in Italy, Halifax in Canada, Savannah in the US to name a few. The fish we eat swam within these toxic waters.

"During the Second World War, Canada produced more chemical weapons than any other of the Allies. After the war, and during the Cold War era, massive weapons stockpiles were simply dumped into the ocean by the United States, Britain, Canada, the Soviet Union and Germany." (source)

It is nearly impossible to clean up this toxic mess from the past because governments are not willing to admit that they have knowingly overseen the poisoning of their population, and also over time these sites are widening due to the ocean currents carrying the mess further afield. Also, fishing trawlers that fish along the ocean floor find these rusting barrels but throw them back into the ocean. They don't want themselves or their boat to be exposed to a deadly nerve gas, nor do they want to carry the extra weight these toxins constitute.

When will governments accept that their predecessors made a mess of our oceans? And when will they accept that a global body should be setup to map-out and clear up this danger from the past?

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C.