Missouri congressmen told Pine Bluff Arsenal indispensable

WHITE HALL, Ark. - On a visit Friday to the Pine Bluff Arsenal, Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton said it was ironic to see weapons systems - some of which he helped establish as the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee - go "from the cradle to the grave" in one place.

Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., hopes having the powerful congressional leader see how diversified the arsenal is will save it from possible military base closures and may even bring it more funding.

Skelton joined Ross and Rep. Vic Snyder from Arkansas, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee, on a comprehensive tour of the Pine Bluff Arsenal, including up-close glimpses of the classified biological and chemical weapons incinerator, production of illumination mortar rounds and protective and detection equipment used by first-responders.

"We can have hearings all day long but unless we see how they make munitions and dispose of them, we'll never understand how critical this is," Skelton said. "This is a first-class facility. I knew it would be diversified, but not this much - you have munitions, first-responders' training and incineration. It goes from the cradle to the grave."

Skelton has a personal connection to the Pine Bluff Arsenal. In the 1980s, he pushed for funding for binary weapon production there. Ross said the ensuing development of a weapon containing two chemicals that alone are not destructive, but become a deadly agent when combined upon impact, was purposely made visible to Soviet satellites and gave the United States an arms race advantage that helped end the Cold War.

The binary production towers at Pine Bluff Arsenal were toppled Jan. 12.

"We're about safe life-cycle management for these weapons," said the base commander, Col. Tom Woloszyn. "A lot of it is about recycling, and it helps us greatly to have it all, and all the expertise in one place."

Ross said he arranged the tour and another one later Friday at the Red River Army Depot near Texarkana, Texas, because military base closings will be recommended in May and he wanted Skelton fully familiarized with the arsenal.

Skelton said he learned how unique the arsenal is. It is a 13,000-acre military base with only 30 uniformed personnel and more than 1,000 civilian employees. It holds 12 percent of the nation's chemical weapons stockpile, which is scheduled to begin incineration under an international treaty in late March.

It's also the site of choice for non-stockpile chemical and biological weapon remediation. When, for example, World War I-era ordnance were found off the Delaware coast last year and infected soldiers who tried to destroy it in Dover, they were sent to Pine Bluff to be safely stored and destroyed.

At the same time, the Clara Barton Center at the Pine Bluff Arsenal has trained more than 5,000 first-responders in more than 1,000 jurisdictions with equipment and skills to handle a biological or chemical attack on the United States.

Ross said the arsenal is vital to the nation's security and contributes to the country's ongoing mission to dispose of biological and chemical weapons. The south Arkansas congressman was optimistic but cautious that the arsenal would survive the next round of base closures and said he wants to include more money for the facility in the proposed $80 billion supplemental funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The three congressmen and local leaders such as state Rep. Stephanie Flowers, Pine Bluff Mayor Carl Redus, White Hall Mayor James "Jitters" Morgan and Jefferson County Judge Jack Jones were given a demonstration of smoke flares, featuring white, purple, green, yellow and red smoke, outside the Clara Barton Center at the White Hall-based facility. The arsenal staff showed off various types of gas masks, and discussed chemical weapon detection systems developed in Arkansas.

During a demonstration of one of more than 100 special climate-controlled tents manufactured near St. Louis and prepared at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ross leaned in to Skelton and said: "These are good people. We want to keep it."

The House Armed Services Committee has jurisdiction over federal funding for military installations.