Anniston incinerator 'a model'

By Hannah Bergman
Star Washington Correspondent
04-02-2004

WASHINGTON — After delays in its startup, the Anniston Army Depot chemical weapons incinerator is now ahead of schedule, Defense Department officials told Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, at a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing Thursday. The Anniston incinerator also has become a model for new facilities, the officials said. It’s taking the country longer than expected to destroy its chemical weapons stockpiles, leading to increased costs and potential violation of a non-proliferation treaty, officials told the subcommittee. Defense Department and Environmental Protection Agency officials urged Congress during the hearing to fulfill President Bush’s budget request for the chemical weapons destruction program. The officials said providing the requested funding will allow destruction of the weapons to proceed as quickly as possible. That’s the best way to eliminate the safety problems connected with the continued existence of the stockpile, they said, and it also is the best way to hold down the cost of the program, which increases with time. The Chemical Weapons Convention, which the United States signed in 1997, originally mandated destruction of 45 percent of the stockpile by April 29, with complete destruction by 2007. Destruction facility delays have caused the April 29 deadline to be moved to 2007, and the 2007 deadline to be moved to 2012. But officials said Anniston is not behind schedule. “We believe we’ll complete operation at Anniston well within the treaty deadline,” said the director of the Army Chemical Material Agency, Mike Parker. By 2007 when all but mustard-agent-filled weapons are expected to have been destroyed, 97 percent of the risk to the Anniston area will be gone, Parker said. Rogers also asked what lessons the Defense Department would take from Anniston. “Anniston was a particularly good startup for us,” Parker said. Processing a few rockets, making checks on the system, and then slowly increasing the workload went well, he said. Anniston also provided important lessons on equipment maintenance, including plant shutdowns for maintenance, that have now been made part of the startup procedures for other facilities, Parker said. But some of those other plants aren’t on schedule, including the Newport, Ind. neutralization facility, which has had problems getting someone to take its waste product. And in Aberdeen, Md., also a neutralization facility, the discovery of congealed mustard gas has increased the workload and time frame. The General Accounting Office, which evaluated the progress of the weapons program, said that without resolution of the problems that have delayed sites, the U.S. may not meet the 2012 goal of complete destruction. “The optimism to meet the 45 percent by 2007 is if all the stars line up exactly right,” said Raymond Decker, the GAO’s director of Defense Capabilities and Management. DOD officials said they were 80 to 90 percent sure they would meet that goal. The 2012 goal is another matter, they said. “That’s much more of challenge, that’s much more problematic and will be dependent on (the budget),” Parker said. Since 1998, the program’s costs have risen from about $15 billion to an estimated $25.4 billion in 2003, Decker’s written testimony said. Expectations are that the costs will continue to increase. Part of the added cost has resulted when towns, like Anniston, have requested additional emergency-preparedness money. To date, Alabama has received more of that money than any other state, amounting to 35 percent of the funds expended for the purpose, or $259 million. The next closest state is Oregon, at $93 million. “The current and future federal budget reality will test the ability of the program leadership to expeditiously and safely destroy the chemical weapons stockpile while exercising good fiscal stewardship,” Decker said.

About Hannah Bergman

Hannah Bergman, a University of Missouri student, covers the U.S. Congress for The Anniston Star.