Defense Environment Alert

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

Vol. 15, No. 26

December 25, 2007

ACTIVISTS WARN ARMY OVER NEW CHEMICAL WEAPONS WASTE DISPOSAL

Citizen activists plan to fiercely resist an Army plan at a Kentucky chemical weapons depot to use off-site disposal for a small quantity of neutralized chemical agent stemming from an emergency action, with activists fearing the Army plan will set a precedent for future large off-site shipments of chemical waste for secondary treatment.

But one Department of Defense spokeswoman dismisses the emergency project as a precedent for other future destruction plans for the depot's waste.

The activists' response comes after Army and DOD agencies charged with storage and destruction of chemical weapons at Blue Grass Army Depot, KY, this month announced an emergency plan to destroy three containers holding a mixture of sarin (GB) nerve agent and acidic neutralizing chemicals. The unplanned disposal of the containers and their contents is necessary, military sources say, following the discovery of a serious leak from one of them in August, but Army plans to send the resulting waste off-site for final disposal are meeting determined resistance.

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a watchdog organization based near the depot outside Richmond, KY, says the Army's plans to ship hazardous waste generated by the emergency agent disposal may set a dangerous precedent for waste that will be generated in the future when the entire chemical weapons stockpile at Blue Grass is neutralized. Citizen activists around stockpile sites have long opposed off-site secondary waste disposal, saying it violates federal law against movements of chemical weapons agents across state boundaries, poses a potential security threat, and unfairly moves dangerous waste to areas where disadvantaged populations live close to disposal plants.

Shipments of similar waste from a Newport, IN, facility to Texas caused an outcry from activists and prompted ongoing legal proceedings against the Army, although activists have so far failed to obtain an injunction to stop the shipments. Activists were successful in previous attempts, however, to block shipments from the Newport facility to other commercial disposal facilities.

Williams says that although the specific method chosen by the Army for "neutralization" of the GB-containing mixture in the affected containers is "pretty robust and efficient," taking the resulting waste material off-site to a commercial facility for final processing is inappropriate. Speaking for the local community around Blue Grass, Williams says "there is significant opposition to that chiefly because it is seen as a precedent for future neutralization."

Blue Grass will use neutralization to dispose of its chemical weapons stockpile, a technique activists have long championed over incineration, which is employed by the Army's Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) at several other sites. CMA is also responsible for storage of agent at Blue Grass and therefore for the fate of the three recent problem "ton containers," but neutralization is due to be conducted by another DOD agency, known as the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program, which will now dispose of the three containers under the emergency regime.

An ACWA spokeswoman says that the proposed shipment of hazardous waste off-site should not be considered a precedent for what will happen with the bulk of neutralized waste once general destruction operations begin. She says Kevin Flamm, project manager for ACWA, has sought to reassure CWWG and other concerned parties that the disposal of the three containers will not set a precedent for off-site shipment of waste. It would not make sense, she argued, to store the waste from the three containers for years, while the larger neutralization facility is built.

Blue Grass is scheduled to dispose of its stockpile of chemical agent by 2023, making it the last of nine sites to destroy its chemical weapons. The site has been dogged by staff allegations of mismanagement and even allegationsof criminal misconduct by certain personnel, leading to an ongoing federal grand jury investigation, adverse inspection reports by state regulators, and intense congressional scrutiny.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is leading legislative efforts to force DOD to accelerate the overall national chemical weapons disposal schedule, successfully attaching to the Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization Act that was recently passed by Congress a measure requiring that all stockpiles in the United States be destroyed by 2017.

Williams says that CWWG is determined to avoid a repetition of what he says was unreasonable secrecy surrounding the shipment of neutralized waste from Indiana to Texas, which he says hindered the legal efforts of campaigners to stop shipments.

Activists claim in the case, Sierra Club, et al. v. Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, et al., that such shipments are illegal and dangerous. The plaintiffs contend that the Army violated defense law by moving material containing trace amounts of chemical warfare agent across state lines, and violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to make public sufficient information on the plan. NEPA is a procedural law governing environmental assessment of government actions. The case is ongoing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

Campaigners also oppose the shipment to Port Arthur, TX, of the Newport waste on environmental justice grounds, as the community living near the Port Arthur site, which incinerates the waste, is predominantly poor and African American.

Williams and others living near the Blue Grass site also take issue with the depot's apparent lack of communi cation with the public regarding the leak of GB-laced material from a ton container in August. The event, which Blue Grass sources say involved leakage of a gallon of highly toxic material, was so worrying that CMA and ACWA officials between them decided an emergency program was necessary to dispose of the three containers -- yet Williams says had emergency action not been decided upon, the event might never have come to light.

The ACWA spokeswoman acknowledges that there are risks to the continued storage of the problem containers, and their destruction on site, but these apply to staff and not to the public. The three containers hold a different mix of agent and other chemicals than other chemical agent vessels at Blue Grass, and therefore constitute a unique threat that does not extend to the stockpile in general, the spokeswoman says.

A spokesman for CMA says there are now no containers holding a similar GB-acid mix elsewhere in the country, and Blue Grass is the only site left with any GB.

The spokesman adds that CMA is now reviewing communications strategy at Blue Grass and other sites. "We are still in the fact-finding stage. If there is something that needs to be addressed, we will address it," the spokesman says.

He adds that CMA is mindful of the hazardous waste problem, but that this will fall to ACWA to address.

Despite the GB leak and late briefing of the public about the incident, Williams remains optimistic that a deal can be struck with ACWA and CMA concerning off-site waste disposal. "I think we are going to be able to come to agreement on this," he says. A public meeting is scheduled for early January that will explore the issue further, ACWA and CMA confirm.