Chemical weapons
report will not affect Pine Bluff
Friday,
Nov 17, 2006
By Aaron Sadler
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A report released Thursday recommends the Army use new
technology to destroy chemical weapons more quickly and safely than it
does now at the Pine Bluff Arsenal and other weapons disposal sites.
However,
the report that highlights ways other countries dispose of their
munitions will not have an impact on Pine Bluff, said an Army
spokeswoman.
Weapons destruction at the arsenal is on track for completion by next
year's international treaty deadline.
The
Army uses a mobile unit known as an Explosive Destruction System that
detonates a weapon in a stainless steel vessel. The weapon is injected
with agents that neutralize the chemical.
"I'm not aware of any
plans to deploy any of these technologies at Pine Bluff," said Army
spokeswoman Karen Drewen. "I would emphasize we have successfully
deployed the EDS there and it's going very well."
The National
Research Council's 83-page report on destruction of nonstockpile,
recovered weapons recommends systems that can destroy 10 times as many
weapons at once as EDS.
The 12-member panel suggested the Army
study three systems in use in other countries for handling large
amounts of chemical weapons buried at several sites across the country.
There are few, if any, chemical weapons buried at Pine Bluff, according
to the report.
"As
far as I can judge, nothing in that report would impact this operation
in Pine Bluff," said Richard Ayen, chairman of the committee that
drafted the report for the Army and the National Academy of Sciences.
The
EDS system works well at Pine Bluff since there is not a large number
of stored weapons to necessitate a larger destruction method, he added.
Both
stockpile and nonstockpile weapons are destroyed at Pine Bluff. Unlike
stockpile weapons, nonstockpile are often recovered after being buried,
left on firing ranges or dumped in the ocean. Ayen said old chemical
weapons sometimes wash up on beaches of Delaware and Hawaii.
Ayen
said the panel looked at how Belgium and Germany destroyed recovered
nonstockpile munitions from World War I while developing the report.
The largest buried nonstockpile sites in the United States are in
Colorado, Maryland, Alabama and Utah.
The
nonstockpile weapons at the Pine Bluff Arsenal are mainly mortar rounds
containing sulfur mustard agent and German Traktor rockets containing a
variety of materials.
