Defense Environment Alert
May 7, 2002

ABERDEEN DESTRUCTION SCHEDULE SLIPS DUE TO FUNDING CONSTRAINTS

The Army has pushed back its schedule for accelerated neutralization of bulk chemical agent in Maryland. following its failure to secure supplemental funding for fiscal year 2002, an Army spokeswoman says. Instead of beginning destruction activities in October, as announced earlier this year, it will now likely be spring 2003 before operations can start, the spokeswoman says.

The Army had originally proposed the accelerated plan in response to national security concerns in the aftermath of the Sept. I I attacks, and citizen activists at the time had urged the Army to consider the same approach for other chemical weapons sites.

Because of the delay, state regulatory officials have asked the Army to submit a permit modification to operate the neutralization facility, which will allow for public comment on the agent destruction plans, instead of approving the military's operational plans through a consent agreement, sources say.

Environmentalists and citizen activists are greeting the news with mixed reactions. The Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a coalition of citizen groups that supports non-incineration destruction methods for chemical weapons, is disappointed the Army was unable to identify funds in the existing FY02 budget that would allow the project to continue on its original pace. a CWWG source says. The groups hope destruction will begin next year, the source says.

But one environmentalist who has expressed concerns that the accelerated destruction plan would increase risks to workers is expressing some relief that the Army is slowing its plans, thereby allowing time for the public to weigh in on the proposal.

In January, the Army released a plan to shave three years from the schedule to destroy chemical agent stockpiled at Aberdeen Proving Ground by sending secondary waste off site for treatment. The Army developed the accelerated destruction plan in the weeks following the Sept. I I terrorist attacks, quietly working with an ad hoc National Research Council panel to explore the feasibility of off-site treatment of the agent hydrolysate and conducting behind-the-scenes negotiations with state and federal regulators and the Maryland congressional delegation (Defense Environment Alert, Jan. 15, p3).

The Army also said at the time that the plan could save the military $276 million because it would not have to build an on-site hydrolysate treatment facility.

The Army spokeswoman says the Army's office of the program manager for chemical demilitarization was notified March 21 that the FY02 supplemental funding legislation did not include the $90 million necessary to start destruction operations this fall. Without the extra funding, the Army has had to scale back construction of the destruction facility from two shifts to one and has delayed hiring 175 workers who would have been involved with neutralizing the agent, she says. The net result is that operations are unlikely to begin before next spring, she says.

But the spokeswoman notes that the even with the delay, "It still represents more than a two-year acceleration" in the destruction schedule. She also says the expected savings will be about the same because the total life cycle cost hasn't changed that much.

The Army negotiated a consent agreement with state regulators in January that allowed the military to proceed with construction of the neutralization facility. The military had planned to use a similar consent agreement to allow it to begin operations. But because it will be several months now before the Army can begin operations, Maryland regulators have asked the Army to submit a permit modification, she says. The Army has an existing permit allowing it to both neutralize the agent and treat the secondary waste on site, but under the accelerated plan, the Army would not build the secondary treatment facility, and the neutralization facility would use a slightly different process to drain and decontaminate the ton containers that store the agent.

The spokeswoman says the Army has completed its paper-work for the permit modification and the state has reviewed it, but she was uncertain at press time what the schedule would be for public comment.