Chemical Companies and Other World War I Facilities

World War I chemical weapons laboratories included the Bureau of Standards, the Geophysical Laboratory, and the Naval Research Laboratory located in Washington, DC. The Naval Research Laboratory also had a large chemical weapons site on the Chesapeake Bay. Experiments with CWM also occurred at the Dow Chemical Company of Midland, Michigan, Zinsser Company of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and a Trench Warfare Section at Cleveland, Ohio. 

As with any manufacturing facility using hazardous materials, the disposal practice at the time was wanton dumping, burial, or pouring down the drain. Keep in mind that the capacity for production at some of the listed facilities was very large and there was no use for many of these World War 1 toxic gases after the war, so any disposal would likely be very large. 

For example, the first small plant at Niagara Falls produced 83,070 pounds of phosgene and only 24,800 pounds made it overseas. Likewise, the Bound Brook plant and Oldbury s main plant each made five tons of phosgene daily. Oldbury s plant loaded 18,768 Livens drums. 

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