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U.S. destroys 40 percent of chemical stockpile as benchmark deadline nears
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Officials in charge of destroying the nation's chemical weapons stockpile say they're moving along with the job, but not as quickly as they'd like. On Monday, the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency reported that 40 percent of chemical blister and nerve agent has been destroyed at facilities in Anniston, Indiana, Oregon, Arkansas and Utah. By December 2007, a total of 45 percent must be destroyed to stay in compliance with the international Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty signed by 181 countries which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. There are 48 weeks left to reach the 45-percent benchmark, but at the current rate of destruction that might not be enough time. Greg Mahall, a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen, Md., said 40 tons of munitions were destroyed last week. At that rate, 2,000 tons would be destroyed by the end of the year. That would leave 13,700 tons destroyed out of 31,500 or 43.4 percent. "We've got to do better," Mahall said. Workers at the Anniston Chemical Demilitarization Facility have been destroying weapons containing sarin and VX nerve agent since 2003. Statistics show Anniston so far has contributed about 4 percent to the total of 40 percent, he said. "To the best of my knowledge, Anniston is doing everything that the Army expects," said Mike Abrams, an Army spokesman at the Anniston facility. "This is not an Anniston number, this is a national number...all (incinerators) contribute to that number." Despite the early estimate, Abrams said he is optimistic the CMA will comply in the end, as was a State Department official who dismissed the idea of penalties for noncompliance because it is a hypothetical situation. Nevertheless, the numbers are not as high as they could be, Mahall said. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which sponsored the treaty, does not recognize as destroyed weapons treated with a process called neutralization, he said, which is taking place at a facility in Newport, Ind. Furthermore, destruction in Anniston has been stalled at the incinerator since a false alarm Jan. 10, Abrams said. In the false alarm, a monitor located in the exhaust stack of the incinerator twice indicated the presence of VX, the nerve agent contained in M-55 rockets workers are destroying. Technicians at an on-site chemical laboratory confirmed that both readings were false. The current delay is being caused by repairs to an electrical panel controlling fans in the pollution abatement systems, Abrams said. "We thought that we would resume this weekend but (now) will resume in the latter part of the week," Abrams said. "For us it's the mechanical gremlins that have caused us problems more than anything else." An extension of the deadline is a possibility, as evidenced by the Chemical Weapons Convention's granting the United States and several other countries until April 29, 2012 to eliminate all declared chemical weapons. The original deadline was in 2007. The consequences for not meeting the deadline, according to the State Department's Web site, include suspension of the rights and privileges under the convention, or in "cases of particular gravity, referral of the issue to the attention of the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council." For Abrams, oversight by elected officials is the key to ensuring speed to make a deadline does not take precedence over safety. "It is important commitment to destroying the weapons is never compromised," he said. |
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