| The Pine Bluff Chemical Disposal Facility
in Pine Bluff, Ark., will start operations next week, with a procedure similar
to the 2003 start of the Anniston Chemical Weapons Disposal Facility.
Crews will destroy two sarin-filled M55 rockets Tuesday, beginning
a process that eventually will destroy the 7.7 million pounds of chemical
agent stored at the site since the 1940s. The Anniston incinerator began
operations by destroying all M55 rockets in its inventory.
“It’s similar,” said Raini K. Wright, a spokeswoman for the
Arkansas facility. “We’re not trying to reinvent.”
Pine Bluff will be the fourth and final chemical disposal
facility in the United States to destroy chemical weapons through incineration.
Weapons destruction in Newport, Ind., also scheduled to begin this year,
will use a chemical neutralization process.
The facility will employ between 900 and 1,000 people. The
Army believes it can burn through the sarin-filled rockets, VX rockets, VX
land mines and mustard blister agent stored at Pine Bluff in five years.
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