a deputy project manager in the u.s. army chemical materials agency, the army created at least 26 chemical weapons dump sites in the ocean off at least 11 states on both the west and east coasts. due to poor records, they currently only know the rough whereabouts of half of them. there is currently a lack of scientific data regarding the ecological and health effects of this dumping. in the event of leakage, many nerve agents are soluble in water and would dissolve in a few days, while other substances like sulfur mustard could last longer. there have also been a few incidents of chemical weapons washing ashore or being accidentally retrieved, for example during dredging or trawl fishing operations. detection detection of gaseous nerve agents the methods of detecting gaseous nerve agents include but are not limited to the following. laser photoacoustic spectroscopy laser photoacoustic spectroscopy (lpas) is a method that has been used to detect nerve agents in the air. in this method, laser light is absorbed by gaseous matter. this causes a heating/cooling cycle and changes in pressure. sensitive microphones convey sound waves that result from the pressure changes. scientists at the u.s. army research laboratory engineered an lpas system that can detect multiple trace amounts of toxic gases in one air sample. this technology contained three lasers modulated to different frequency, each producing a different sound wave tone. the different wavelengths of light were directed into a sensor referred to as the photoacoustic cell. within the cell were the vapors of different nerve agents. the traces of each nerve agent had a signature effect on the "loudness" of the lasers' sound wave tones. some overlap of nerve agents' effects did occur in the acoustic results. however, it was predicted that specificity would increase as additional lasers with unique wavelengths were added. yet, too many lasers set to different wavelengths could result in overlap of absorption spectra. citation lpas technology can identify gases in parts per billion (ppb) concentrations. the following nerve agent simulants have been identified with this multiwavelength lpas: dimethyl methyl phosphonate (dmmp) diethyl methyl phosphonate (demp) diisopropyl methyl phosphonate (dimp) dimethylpolysiloxane (dime), triethyl phosphate (tep) tributyl phosphate (tbp) two volatile organic compounds (vocs) acetone (ace) isopropanol (iso), used to construct sarin other gases and air contaminants identified with lpas include: co2 carbon dioxide benzene formaldehyde acetaldehyde ammonia nox nitrogen oxide so2 sulphur oxide ethylene glycol tatp tnt non-dispersive infrared non-dispersive infrared techniques have been reported to be used for gaseous nerve agent detection. ir absorption traditional ir absorption has been reported to detect gaseous nerve agents. fourier transform infrared spectroscopy fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy has been reported to detect gaseous nerve agents.