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September 25,2006
Chemical Weapons

A Milestone Of Note

The Army has destroyed 50% of all munitions
in the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile

Lois R. Ember

The Army's effort to rid the nation of its deadly arsenal of chemical
weapons has been a long, costly slog, but on Aug. 30, the service reached
a benchmark: destruction of 50% of the more than 3.4 million munitions in
the U.S.'s declared chemical weapons stockpile. By destroying more than
1.7 million weapons, the Army has eliminated over 39%-more than 12,285
tons-of the agent tonnage originally declared.

In 1985, the U.S. publicly acknowledged possessing these chemical
weapons in an arsenal that totals about 31,500 tons of agent. Then, the
Army estimated that it would be able to eliminate the entire stockpile by
1994 at a cost of $1 billion. Today, the Army concedes that it may not be
able to meet U.S. treaty obligations to destroy the stockpile by 2012, even
at a cost now estimated at nearly $33 billion.

Still, the Army is on track to meet the chemical weapons treaty's deadline
to destroy 45% of the stockpile tonnage by December 2007, a deadline the
treaty's implementing agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW), extended from April 2004.

"Having one-half of our originally declared number of weapons destroyed
shows a tangible mark on the wall," says Michael A. Parker, director of the
Army's Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) "This milestone demonstrates
indisputable progress toward the overall goal: the total, safe elimination of
our chemical weapons stockpile."

Even with 61% of the stockpile tonnage remaining, the Army "has reduced
risks considerably at all operating destruction sites, although the risks vary
from site to site," CMA spokesman Gregory Mahall says. For example, at its
largest disposal site in Tooele, Utah, the Army "has eliminated almost all
risks, not because of the volume of agent destroyed, but because of the
type of agent destroyed," Mahall explains. "All nerve agent at Tooele has
been destroyed."

At latest count, Tooele has eliminated 7,425 tons of the approximately
13,600 tons stored there. Just over 6,000 1-ton containers of mustard agent
remain to be destroyed. Mustard, unlike the nerve agents, is nonvolatile,
and "Its chances of getting into the air are remote," says Mahall.

<>Craig E. Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working
Group (CWWG), which opposes incineration, welcomes the 50% reduction
in the stockpile of weapons. But, he notes, "it hasn't come quickly or
cheaply."

Williams has lingering concerns about incineration's "impact on public
health and the environment." But, he says, there's no denying that "the
weapons are gone. The country, world, and especially the communities
surrounding the destruction sites are safer now than they were before the
weapons were destroyed."

The Army began destroying chemical weapons in 1990 at its storage facility
on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean about 825 miles southwest of
Honolulu. By 2000, all 2,031 tons of agent in weapons and in bulk
containers were incinerated, the destruction facility shut down, and the site
cleaned up. According to Mahall, the Environmental Protection Agency is
still considering final closure of the site, which, he says, is now a wildlife
refuge.

On the mainland, the Army began operating disposal facilities at its storage
sites in Tooele in 1996 and in Anniston, Ala., in 2003. The following year,
the Army's Umatilla, Ore., disposal facility came on-line. All of these are
incineration facilities. To date, Anniston has destroyed 475 tons of its
2,250-ton arsenal, and Umatilla has disposed of 756 tons from its 3,700-ton
stockpile.

Also, in 2004, the Army began neutralizing more than 1,600 tons of mustard
agent stored in bulk in 1-ton containers at Aberdeen, Md. In January 2006,
Aberdeen became the first facility within the continental U.S. to completely
destroy its stockpile.

In 2005, the Army began operating another neutralization facility at
Newport, Ind., and an incineration facility in Pine Bluff, Ark. According to
the Army's latest count, Pine Bluff has destroyed 293 tons of its 3,900-ton
stockpile, and Newport has neutralized 322 tons of its 1,270-ton arsenal,
which is composed solely of the nerve agent VX.

The neutralization at Newport, involving supercritical water oxidation, is a
two-stage process. The Army would like to transport the wastewater
produced in Indiana to a DuPont hazardous-waste treatment facility in New
Jersey for secondary treatment. Because of opposition from the states of
Delaware and New Jersey and several environmental groups, the Army has
not transferred the wastewater and is instead storing it on-site.

Without secondary treatment, OPCW doesn't consider the nerve agent
destroyed. The U.S., therefore, receives no credit for the first stage of the
destruction process and cannot apply the quantity of VX now rendered less
toxic toward meeting the 45% deadline.

The Army has yet to build neutralization facilities at its storage sites in Blue
Grass, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo. According to some official schedules, Pueblo
is slated to begin operations in the 2010-12 timeframe and close down by
2014. Blue Grass will come on-line sometime between 2012 and 2014 and
shut down as late as 2015.

According to Katherine B. DeWeese, those dates are not firm and are
expected to be adjusted by the Defense Acquisition Board, which sets the
schedules for Blue Grass and Pueblo. DeWeese is a spokeswoman for
Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives, the Army group overseeing
destruction of the weapons at these two sites. DeWeese says the board
met in late August but has not yet made the new schedules public.

The 1997 chemical weapons treaty mandates that all signatory countries
possessing chemical weapons dispose of them by April 2007. The treaty
allows for a one-time five-year extension to April 2012 but is silent on what
happens if countries are unable to meet the extended deadline. The U.S.
has asked for the extension, but OPCW's Executive Council has not
formally granted the request, although it is expected to do so.

Even when granted, the U.S. will likely not be able to comply with the
extended deadline. Blue Grass and Pueblo won't meet the 2012 deadline.
Newport might, but only if the wastewater is treated in New Jersey. If
transportation is blocked, the Army will have to revert to its original plan to
build a secondary treatment plant on-site in Indiana, thus delaying the
complete destruction of all the VX stored there.

Prospects for the other sites are more dismal. According to an April 2006
Defense Department schedule of estimated completion dates, Tooele's
stocks will not be eliminated until 2015. Anniston's and Pine Bluff s
stockpiles are estimated to be destroyed by 2016, and Umatilla's by 2017.

Williams believes the April 2006 schedule is reasonable. "After 15 years of
optimistic projections, the Army now has a grip on a more realistic
schedule."

Williams would be expected to say that: In 2001, he told C&EN, "CWWG
predicted that the completion dates for the incineration sites would be
approximately what the Army is now saying are its conservative
completion dates."

CMA's Parker admits that "meeting the April 2012 deadline is going to be
challenge." The schedules listed in the Defense Department document, he
says, are where the Army expects to be if it doesn't learn from past
problems. "We will continue to seek ways to take those schedules and
move them closer to the 2012 deadline." Already, he says, "we are seeing
improved destruction rates while also continuously improving our safety
performance."

The latest destruction figures tally progress. Since Aug. 30, the Army has
destroyed another 7,650 munitions. This translates to a total of more than
12,600 tons of chemical agent destroyed, or 40% of the stockpile the U.S.
declared in 1985.

Parker expects this progress to be sustained and "CMA to continue to be
the world's leader and have the greatest level of expertise in achieving"
destruction of the U.S. chemical arsenal. It's not an idle boast.

With 40,000 metric tons (40,640 tons) of chemical agents stockpiled at
seven storage sites, Russia's chemical arsenal is about a third greater than
the U.S.'s. Russia began destroying its weapons in late 2002 and, to date,
"has destroyed about 2,200 metric tons (2,235 tons) or 5.5%" of its
stockpile, says Paul F. Walker, director of Global Green USA's Legacy
Program. Unlike the U.S., Russia employs only neutralization to destroy its
weapons

"The 2,200 metric tons represent 1,143 metric tons (1,161 tons) at Gorny
and over 1,100 metric tons (1,118 tons) at Kambarka," Walker explains. The
Gorny facility is about 650 miles southeast of Moscow and is the smallest
of Russia's seven storage sites. By December 2005, three years after start-
up, Russia completely neutralized all of the lewisite-an arsenic-containing
agent-and mustard agents stored in bulk at Gorny.

Russia began operating its second destruction facility at Kambarka, about
750 miles east of Moscow, this March. Kambarka holds nearly 6,350 metric
tons (6,452 tons) of bulk lewisite stored in 90 railroad tank cars. Russia
expects to complete destruction of the Kambarka stockpile by 2009.

On Sept. 8, Russia officially opened its third destruction facility in
Maradikovsky, about 300 miles northeast of Moscow. This facility holds
about 7,400 metric tons (7,518 tons) of the nerve agents VX, soman, and
sarin as well as a lewisite/mustard agent mixture. Full operations are set to
begin in December 2008, and Russia hopes to completely eliminate this
stockpile by 2012.

Russia is under some pressure to meet its treaty obligations to destroy
20% of its entire arsenal by April 2007, five years beyond the treaty's
original 20% deadline. Maradikovsky will have to play a large role in
meeting that looming deadline.

According to Walker's calculations, Russia will have to destroy about 57%
of Maradikovsky's stockpile-more than 4,200 metric tons (4,267 tons) of
chemical agent-over the next seven months in order for it to meet the
April 2007 deadline. That amounts to over 525 metric tons (533 tons) per
month-a pretty steep order considering prior U.S. and Russian destruction
rates.