Exposure assessment of a burning ground for chemical ammunition on the Great War battlefields of Verdun

Abstract

The destruction of arsenical shells from the 1914/18 war in the vicinity of Verdun (France) during the 1920s resulted in a locally limited but severe soil contamination by arsenic and heavy metals. At the study site, the main part of the contaminant inventory occurs in the upper 20 cm of the topsoil which is essentially composed of combustion residues. Besides, some Cu (cmax.=16,877 mg/kg) and Pb (cmax.=26,398 mg/kg) in this layer, As (cmax.=175,907 mg/kg) and Zn (cmax.=133,237 mg/kg) were detected in very high concentrations. The mobilities of Cu, Mn, Pb and Zn in the soil system were derived from ammonium nitrate eluates. They are strongly influenced by the soil pH and can be described by quadratic regression curves from which threshold pH values were calculated. Below these values more than 10% of the element content was available as mobile species. Within the examined pH range, this method could not be adopted for arsenic, because the mobility of As was only slightly controlled by the soil pH. In the heavily contaminated topsoil, Cu and Pb were fixed by the moderately acidic soil pH which varied from 4.8 to 5.8. No migration to the underlying horizons occurred. A different behavior was observed for As and Zn. The calculated threshold pH of Zn was 5.5, so certain amount of this element was transferred to the subsoil and the leachate (cmax.=350 microg/l). However, a major dispersion of Zn was prevented by a rise of the soil pH in the carbonate-containing subsoil. Elevated concentrations of As were found in all soil horizons up to a depth of 2 m and also in the leachate (cmax.=2377 microg/l). Contrary to Cu, Pb and Zn the mobility of As evidently was less affected by the subsoil. Regarding organic contaminants, nitroaromatic explosives were detected only in minor concentrations in the soil (cmax.=14.7 mg/kg) and the leachate (cmax.=13.5 microg/l). No aromatic organoarsenicals were detected in the soil and the leachate samples. The main hazard of the site is the severe arsenic contamination and the transfer of this carcinogen by leachate, surface runoff and probably by wind. Nevertheless, some studies on the effects of the contaminant inventory on the local vegetation revealed that ammonium nitrate elutable zinc is responsible for the spatial distribution of some tolerant plant species and not arsenic. Previously undetected buried munitions from the former delaboration facility can be an other source of environmental contaminants. This is supported by elevated concentrations of chlorate (cmax.=71 mg/l) and perchlorate (cmax.=0.8 mg/l) detected in the leachate samples. This is the second report about environmental contamination related to post-war ammunition destruction activities along the 1914/18 Western Front.