Disposal in the doldrums
By Jonas Siegel

Defense Department officials say they want the deadline for the total eradication of the stockpile pushed back too, but according to the GAO, "unless the program resolves the problems causing program delays," the United States risks missing this extended deadline, too.

Mismanagement has been the most frequent critique of the disposal program, but at least one observer questions whether government officials feel any urgency to get rid of weapons stockpiles, considering the abysmal disposal efforts in Russia. Russia possesses the world's largest stockpile of chemical weapons and is running far behind in meeting its CWC goals. (As of September 2003, Russia had destroyed only 1 percent of its 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons.)

"I see no reason for the United States to destroy their stockpiles three or four years ahead of Russia," says Igor Khripunov, associate director of the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia in Athens.

New leadership with close ties to the military, as well as ongoing administrative reform in Russia, is slowing down the progress of the destruction program, according to Khripunov. The U.S. Defense Department has so far committed more than $460 million to the construction of the disposal facility at Shchuchye--what would arguably be the most important disposal facility in Russia--according to the GAO. Funding has been delayed as Russia repeatedly fails to meet conditions set by Congress. In the meantime, costs for the project are expected to balloon from $888 million to more than $1 billion. The GAO estimates that all chemical agents located at Shchuchye will be destroyed, at the earliest, by 2016.

The status of disposal at certain U.S. locations:

Tooele, Utah. In May, officials announced that they had destroyed the last of the VX nerve gas contained in 632 bulk containers located at the site. A month earlier, however, army officials announced that before they begin destroying mustard agent, the facility's incinerator will have to undergo a $50 million renovation. The changes are necessary to safely burn the heavy metals, including mercury, that have contaminated the stockpiles.

In March, army officials also reprimanded a contractor at Tooele for a series of safety lapses. At the site, "performance is regressing back toward the pre-July 2002" level, when a worker came in contact with a nerve agent during routine maintenance, army officials told the contractor. Operations at the site were suspended from July 2002 to March 2003 following the incident.

Newport, Indiana. The neutralization of 1,270 tons of VX nerve agent was supposed to begin in October 2003 but has been repeatedly delayed by construction problems.

Further delays are possible as the army finalizes its plans to treat the by-products of neutralization at a Dupont treatment facility in New Jersey. Local officials and communities have opposed the plan to dump the treated by-products into the Delaware River. Army officials have said they plan to start neutralizing the agent this summer, even if plans to ship the waste to New Jersey are not complete.

Edgewood, Maryland. It has taken longer than expected for workers to safely drain 1,817 1-ton containers of mustard agent at the site while preparing to neutralize the material. The completion date for this part of the project was pushed back from October 2003 to December 2004. After this stage is complete, officials will still have to come up with a way to remove residual or hardened agent from the containers, a process that will likely cause further delays.