Looking for old cans on San Jose Island
Fly into La Paz, and rent a motorboat. San Jose Island is in the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez) a long, narrow body of water squashed between Mexico and the Baja Peninsula. (Early arrivals may want to fit in some scuba diving or snorkeling before the trip begins.)
The area is part of the “Gulf of California Islands Flora and Fauna Protection Area.” Unique species such as the San Jose rabbit (Sylvilagus mansuetus) inhabit the islands alongside more than seventy types of amphibians, reptiles, birds and pretty mammals such as the Juancito (little squirrel), the Babisuri (Ring-tailed cat), the Black Hare and the Sand Snake. San Jose appears to be an untouched tropical paradise with Boa constrictors, parrots, and iguanas abounding in its forests.
But Isla San Jose is both a paradise found—and lost. Plans to make it into an ecotourist resort have come and gone, as finds of rare animals amongst the giant cacti or in the incredible blue lagoons alternate with discoveries of rusting bombs of mustard gas and drums of cyanide.
Visitors to the island recently have reported finding remnants of the “Project” everywhere. Rusted US Army tractors and unmarked metal drums lay abandoned near beaches. A wharf, built to unload thousands of gallons of chemicals as well as bombs and other supplies, still thumbs its nose at one of the beautiful bays. Inland, there's even the concrete skeleton of an American military chapel in the middle of the jungle. During a short visit in 2001, David Pugliese found remains of discarded mustard gas bombs on the side of a dirt road and a US-made chemical weapon cylinder in the grass beside the path to the beach.
For, tropical paradise or no, hundreds if not thousands (the exact number is still a state secret) of chemical weapons tests were conducted on tropical San Jose Island, Panama, by the United States Army. The first tests started in the 1920s and were then supposedly related to defending the Panama Canal.
But the bulk of the poisons derive from the Second World War. Concerned about the heavy resistance American troops found in attempting to recapture tropical islands from the Japanese, General William Porter, head of chemical warfare for the US, believed he could kill or incapacitate entire Japanese garrisons, cheaply and efficiently, by saturating their bunkers with mustard gas, phosgene, and various other poisons. Although of course the Geneva protocols outlawed such weapons.
To prove his theory, General Porter needed a tropical island. Which is where San Jose comes in again. Canada, then at the forefront of chemical warfare production and experimentation, offered 50-pound mustard gas cluster bombs as the ideal method of dispersing the chemical, and the San Jose Project was given the green light.
Between May 1944 and the end of 1947, the US government conducted more than 130 tests on San Jose. Nearby Iguana Island was sprayed with various chemicals too. To start with, the island was divided into six target areas, made up of overlapping squares about one square mile (2.6 square kilometers) each. The chemical agents tested included: mustard gas, phosgene, cyanogen chloride, hydrogen cyanide, and butane. (One small and presumably public-spirited activity for No Holidaymakers is to try to find old canisters of each kind.)
To help observe how lethal various methods of attack, extra rabbits, as well as goats from Ecuador, were brought in on a boat. José Alsola, a Peruvian who worked on the island, clearing vegetation for paths and an airstrip, described what happened next: “They put those gases on them. The skin fell off the animals, they died, and they ended up cooked. The animal was red, red!”
Soldiers from the Canal Zone were tested too. One of the tests sought, as the army researchers put it, “to determine if any difference existed in the sensitivity of Puerto Rican and Continental US troops to H [mustard] gas.” The soldiers quickly developed problems breathing, and had to be rushed to nearby Gorgas Hospital. One of them complained to a medical aide that his buddy had “almost choked to death.” The aide then asked the doctor, “What's wrong with them?” And the doctor said, “It's that damn mustard gas!” Eventually, the tests showed no difference; both groups of men writhed in pain, their skin burned and they became covered in hideous lesions.
After the war, from 1953 to 1957, the United States experimented with the detonation of chemical mines and warheads filled with live nerve agent. At least some of the mines were filled with the VX nerve agent, one of the military's most deadly products. Ten milligrams of VX agent constitutes a lethal dose, so each VX mine theoretically contains enough nerve agent to kill nearly half a million people or, failing that, rabbits or goats.
The current owners of the island have asked the US State Department to conduct a review of the island for contamination, and are building tourist cabins, a swimming pool, a bar, and a dining room overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They hope tourists will be able to explore the island on motorcycles and carts, without supervision.
Unfortunately, although the United States government acknowledges having buried chemical warfare agents in the Panama Canal area, it declines to disclose any details citing concern that such information could assist terrorists.
