Weapons incinerator on track to destroy stockpile by 2010
The Associated Press
7/19/2004, 1:55 a.m. CT
ANNISTON, Ala. (AP) -- The Anniston chemical weapons incinerator is on track to destroy the 4.1 million pounds of sarin, VX and blister agent that remains in its stockpile by 2010, officials said.
The Army's incinerator has burned all non-leaking, drainable sarin-filled rockets in the stockpile since opening in August 2003, accounting for about 5 percent of the its munitions and 7 percent of the its agent.
Site manager Tim Garrett said burning through the rest of the stockpile likely will take the next six years.
The incinerator is scheduled to finish destroying sarin-filled rockets this year and begin burning VX-filled munitions in 2006 before moving on to munitions filled with blister agent.
Despite progress at Anniston and other sites, the international effort to destroy chemical weapons is far behind schedule and astronomically more costly than anticipated.
Russia and the United States account for almost all of the world's known chemical weapons but neither country will meet the 2007 deadline for full destruction set in a 1997 treaty, according to a March report by the General Accounting Office.
A proposed 2012 deadline also is unlikely to be met, according to the report.
Army officials say factors including regulatory and environmental delays are to blame for the slow pace and a program cost that went from $2 billion to a projected $25 billion.