Defense Environment Alert
January 28, 2003

ACTIVISTS HAIL WHITE'S ACTION TO REVAMP CHEMICAL DEMIL PROGRAM

Citizen activists are endorsing the Army secretary's decision to again overhaul the management of the Army's chemical weapons demilitarization program, a program with a history of skyrocketing costs and broken schedules, and which critics say has lacked proper oversight over the years.

In a decision made public this month, Army Secretary Thomas White is now removing the Army environment chief's oversight authority for the chemical demilitarization program and giving it back to the acquisition assistant secretary, and is consolidating demilitarization functions with chemical weapons storage management under a single director. The decision follows controversy over chemical emergency preparedness actions by the environment office and comes just 13 months after the program was passed from the acquisition office to the environment office (Defense Environment Alert, Dec. 18, 2001, p1 3). Previous to that decision, both the acquisition and environment offices had some level of control over the chemical demilitarization program.

"We thought putting de-mil in the Army Environmental Office made sense at the time, but we didn't count on a management style based on covert operations and the total exclusion of public participation," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), earlier this month. CWWG is a citizen coalition that has long advocated non-incineration alternatives for destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile. "We know this will be a positive change and look forward to working with the new leadership."

White directed the assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology "to assume responsibility for all policy, direction, and oversight in connection with the Chemical Demilitarization Program (CDP) and the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program [CSEPP]," according to a memo he signed Jan. 15. CSEPP management had resided with the Army's Soldier and Biological Chemical Command, a subordinate command to the Army Materiel Command (AMC).

With the change, the chemical demilitarization program will for the first time be under a conventional chain of command, says a spokesman for CWWG.

The transfer becomes effective Feb. 18, White says. Letters related to the transfer are available on InsideEPA. com. See page 2 for details.

Under the secretary's directive, a new agency will be established to execute chemical demilitarization, including plant construction, operation and closure, and to manage storage of the remaining chemical weapons. The Chemical Materials Agency will combine these functions under a single director, a move that "will achieve greater efficiencies and better meet the needs of the program for the future," an Army spokesperson says. The acquisition office and AMC will jointly establish this agency, White says.

The Army plans to split the four main chemical demilitarization responsibilities between two deputy directors under the leadership of the new agency. The first deputy will manage construction and testing of a new facility and report up through the agency director to the acquisition assistant secretary, while the second will manage operations and closure of each facility, reporting through the agency up to the AMC commanding general, Greg Mahall, a spokesman for the Army's program manager for chemical demilitarization, told sister publication Inside the Pentagon. Operations related to the storage of chemical weapons will fall under the deputy director managing destruction operations and plant closures. The entire stockpile and destruction effort then will be brought "under one collective roof," Mahall said.

"That is the 'big picture' look at things," he said. "How that translates into the work-a-day world and just how things are structured at the individual sites is probably what will be worked on quite strategically between now and the effective date of Feb. 18."

As each chemical demilitarization plant completes construction and systemization, the acquisition office will transfer responsibility for destruction and closure to AMC, the Army spokesperson said Jan. 24 in response to written questions from Defense Environment Alert.

The CWWG spokesman says the disposal and stockpile storage program should have been combined years ago. Merging the two facilitates decision-making and consistency, and allows for the integration of storage risk, processing and other aspects to be reviewed as a complete picture, rather than in a fragmented way, the spokesman says. The program could potentially be turned around and finally become "functional," with an emphasis on openness and execution, rather than strategic public relations, he says.

"It is our hope that Assistant Secretary [for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Claude] Bolton and General [Paul] Kern will prioritize open and candid dealings with the public as they create this new agency," Williams said in a press release. Kern is commanding general of AMC.

The Army spokesperson would not say whether there were problems with the environment office's oversight of the program, saying instead that much had been accomplished over the past year in the destruction campaign. "The previous organization was successful, and this organization will be even better," the spokesperson says. "The change is a further refinement to the management of the [disposal program]."

The action comes not long after Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) raised concerns to White over a series of internal emails from the environment office showing plans to effectively blame local and state emergency agencies in Alabama for the community's lack of readiness to respond to an emergency, should one occur at the chemical weapons storage and disposal facility in Anniston (Defense Environment Alert, Oct. 8, 2002, p4). Emergency preparedness has long been a bone of contention between the Army and Alabama residents and local officials.

A spokeswoman for Shelby says he supports White's recent action to reform the structural and financial aspects of the chemical demilitarization program. Shelby was one of two senators who in 2001 successfully pressured DOD to then restructure oversight of the chemical demilitarization program, soon after congressional findings indicated that the Army, at the program's current rate, would miss chemical weapons destruction deadlines by years, despite Army statements to the contrary.