Arsenic and Old Tanks

Six tank cars filled with 45,000 gallons of arsenic trichloride stood on a railroad siding in the town of Horse Cave, Ky. (pop. 2,000) last week, slowly dripping one of the deadliest of poisons. Four years ago the oily, yellowish liquid was bought as surplus from the Army's Chemical Corps (which had used it during World War II to make lethal Lewisite gas) by a company which planned to use one of its derivatives in drilling oil wells. Later the company went out of business, leaving the cargo unclaimed.

As months passed, the chemical ate its way through the tank cars. Arsenic trichloride, when mixed with enough water, breaks down into arsenic trioxide and hydrochloric acid in a chemical reaction that increases its corrosive properties. A good rain storm, Horse Cavers were told, could speed the tank leakage beyond hope of control. Already a heavy fog had carried hydrochloric-acid fumes half a mile away, where they killed a bean crop. Worse still, arsenic compound could seep through the famed Kentucky porous limestone into Hidden River, in the cave beneath the town, and contaminate the area's water supply.

Horse Cave offered the poison to chemical companies, free. There were no takers. Health officers refused to let the poison be poured into an abandoned well or buried in "some no-count piece of land." Someone suggested towing the stuff down the Mississippi and dumping it in the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard said no, it would kill too many fish.

Last week Kentucky's Senator Earle Clements wired the White House demanding that the Army relieve Horse Cave of its "mortal danger." He was refused. That left Horse Cave just where it started: fearfully waiting for the rain which might release a surge of the witch's brew.

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