Defense Environment Alert
an exclusive biweekly report on defense policies for cleanup, compliance and pollution prevention


Vol. 13, No. 3--February 8, 2005


SENATORS SEEK TO BLOCK CHEMICAL WEAPONS RELOCATION STUDY

The Defense Department is under significant pressure from key members of the Senate to halt an ongoing study evaluating options to relocate some of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile to other destruction facilities. But at press time, the Army -- at the direction of DOD officials -- was continuing to conduct the study, despite legislation introduced in the Senate to shut down the study and existing laws prohibiting the interstate transport of such weapons, sources say.

Senators from seven of eight chemical weapons stockpile sites have so far signed on as co-sponsors of legislation that would block DOD from funding an ongoing evaluation examining options for transporting chemical weapons stockpiles across state lines. The final analysis is due March 21. And while Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) -- the main co-sponsor of S. 186 -- has been in "constant discussions" with DOD officials over halting the study, a spokeswoman for his office said Feb. 1, "there has been no agreement reached." The Senate bill is available on InsideEPA.com.

Other co-sponsors are Sens. Ken Salazar (D-CO), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), according to the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a citizens coalition that has been a long-time watchdog of the chemical demilitarization program. According to CWWG, Arkansas' two senators, however, have declined to co-sponsor the bill, and the remaining senators from Oregon, Indiana and Alabama are still considering co-sponsorship. Identical House legislation has been introduced by Reps. John Salazar (D-CO) and Ben Chandler (D-KY), according to CWWG.

The senators' opposition to the study comes just after many of these same senators blasted the Pentagon over recently revealed DOD plans to severely slash funding for chemical weapons destruction facilities to be built in Kentucky and Colorado (Defense Environment Alert, Jan. 25, p 10).

At issue is the Pentagon's decision in recent weeks to revisit the option of transporting chemical weapons from some stockpiles for consolidated disposal at other stockpile sites, as one possible way of meeting an international treaty mandate to destroy the U.S. stockpiles by 2012, at the latest. The Defense Department and Army have struggled with meeting internal schedules for destruction and have seen the program's costs spiral exceedingly. A spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, however, could not answer whether the United States would miss the 2012 deadline if relocation does not go forward. The spokesman also could not provide details on the scope of the relocation evaluation.

But critics charge the study is a waste of money. "The latest and most frustrating Pentagon effort in this program is to study once again the possibility of transporting the 2,600 tons of mustard gas across the state of Colorado [from the Army's Pueblo Chemical Depot] to an incineration site out of state," Allard said in a Jan. 26 floor statement. "Never mind that this option has been studied at least three times in the past decade. Never mind that current law prohibits the transport of chemical munitions across state lines. And never mind that transporting these weapons out of state would violate the agreement the Defense Department made with people in Pueblo.

This study is unnecessary and [a] waste of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars. I have already been told by Pentagon officials that the study is going to conclude that the transportation of chemical munitions across state lines is not practical. If that is the case, why do the study?"

'Transporting these weapons would be a dangerous and expensive enterprise," Sen. Salazar said, also speaking Jan. 26 on the Senate floor about transport of weapons from the Pueblo site. "It would be subject to legal challenges by the towns and the States involved, and it is against Federal law."

Existing defense authorization law, passed in 1995, currently bans interstate transport of the weapons. Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. (R) and Oregon Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski (D) have also come out strongly against transporting chemical weapons into their states for disposal.

Meanwhile, a committee of the National Research Council (NRC) last month issued a report that effectively endorses the design for the Pueblo site's chemical weapons neutralization facility developed by DOD's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program, contrary to recent questioning by DOD officials over the design. But the report likely has little relevance given that high-level Pentagon officials last year decided to suspend design work for nine months for the construction of processing buildings at Pueblo while studying alternatives that would cost less, an ACWA source says. The NRC report, requested by the ACWA program, was not yet completed when that decision was made, the source says.

The report comes shortly after high-level DOD officials called into question the operational viability and stability of the neutralization process for Pueblo, asking lower-level officials to look into delaying the program to allow for design changes (Defense Environment Alert, Jan. 11, p6).

"... [T]he committee believes that the [Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant] can effectively and safely destroy the chemical agent and the energetic materials in the chemical munitions at Pueblo Chemical Depot," the NRC report says. However, committee members voiced concern over the capability of a continuous steam treater to effectively process dunnage.

By and large, [the NRC report] endorses the design approach we're taking," the ACWA source says.