Hearst Newspapers
May 4, 2003

U.S. ARMY DESTROYING ITS CHEMICAL WEAPONS

By DAN FREEDMAN

WASHINGTON _ While U.S. soldiers scour Iraq in search of chemical weapons, the Army is destroying 31,000 tons of lethal chemicals that were once in the American arsenal.

The disposal program is centered at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, southwest of Salt Lake City. Virtually all of the chemical weapons disappearing into its huge incinerator are Cold-War era leftovers from the 1950s and 1960s.

About 6,000 tons of the nerve agent sarin have been incinerated there so far, and the Army is starting on the destruction of 1,300 tons of VX, also a nerve agent.

At remote Johnston Island, 800 miles south of Hawaii, the Army already has incinerated 2,000 tons of chemical mustard, used for making the gas used in World War I, in addition to VX and sarin.

The Pentagon destroyed its stockpile of anthrax and other biological agents in the 1970s on orders from Richard M. President Nixon. In 1975 President Gerald Ford signed the international Biological Weapons Convention, foreswearing development and use of such weapons.

The military, of course, continues to maintain its nuclear arsenal, albeit at reduced levels since the end of the Cold War.

In 1985, Congress directed the Army to start destroying chemical weapons. And in 1997, the U.S. signed the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which directs all 151 signatory nations to dismantle their stockpiles.

In all, according to the federal Chemical Materials Agency, which administers the disposal program, the U.S. Army has gotten rid of 26 percent of its 31,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons.

Within five years, seven other Army chemical weapons depots will begin eliminating the inventories they've stored for 30 years or more.

They are in Pine Bluff, Ark.; Anniston, Ala.; Aberdeen, Md.; Newport, Ind.; Pueblo, Colo.; Richmond, Ky.; and Umatilla, Ore.

The plants cost about $1 billion each to construct and operate.

Iraq has up to 500 tons of chemical weapons, Secretary of State Colin Powell said at the UN last February when he presented what he said was evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

These weapons formed the basis of President Bush's justification for attacking Iraq. U.S. inability to find any of these weapons three weeks after major fighting ceased is proving to be an irksome thorn in the side of the Bush administration.

If search crews come across chemical weapons in Iraq, the Army's long track record of disposing them will prove invaluable, according to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Donald Sewell.

"I'm sure when we find what we expect to find in Iraq, that expertise will come to bear in terms of helping us figure out how best to destroy it,'' said Sewell, a naval officer.

In the United States, controversy over safety and environmental impact of furnace emissions has delayed the program's completion date.

The Chemical Weapons Working Group, a federation of organizations working in communities adjacent to the weapons depots, has documented 18 instances of chemical agents released into the atmosphere from the incinerators in Utah and Johnston Island.

The Army shut down the Tooele plant for four months in 2000 after a confirmed release of sarin, the same chemical released by Japanese terrorists on the Tokyo subway in 1995, killing 12.

The same plant closed for eight months from July 2002 to last March after an alarm indicated a sarin leak. One worker exhibited symptoms of sarin exposure, but soon felt better and returned to work.

In a report last year, the National Research Council, one of the national academies that advises the government on science, engineering and medicine, cited 81 incidents at the two sites, of which 40 were deemed "chemical events'' _ an actual or potential release of a chemical agent.

Still, the report concluded that safe disposal of chemical weapons through incineration is ``feasible,'' and that destruction "should proceed as quickly as possible.''

The Army is completing incinerators that run as high as 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit at the depots in Oregon, Alabama and Arkansas. Groups in the Chemical Weapons Working Group have lawsuits pending against them in each jurisdiction.

When they are complete, the depots in Indiana, Maryland, Kentucky and Colorado will dispose of chemicals through a process known as neutralization.

Neutralization involves chemically decomposing toxic agents, rendering them inert.

Craig Williams, the director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, said the technology the Army uses to incinerate the weapons in furnaces "does not operate as advertised or designed.''

Williams, who lives in Berea, Ky., about seven miles from the Blue Grass Army Depot in nearby Richmond, added: "The Army spent more time defending its decision (to incinerate chemical weapons) than on getting the job done.''

Neutralization has been proven safe, Williams said. All plants using the incineration method should be "retrofitted'' for chemical neutralization, he added.

Spokesmen for the Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen, Md., said none of the chemical releases at the plants with furnaces had caused lasting injury or environmental damage.

While neutralization is good for disposing of chemical agents in liquid form in containers, it is not as effective when the chemicals are in rockets, artillery projectiles or land mines, agency spokesman Greg Mahall said.

Also, retooling furnaces in Oregon, Alabama and Arkansas would "double the cost'' or building each facility, he added.

"Safety is our number one priority,'' said spokesman Marilyn Daughdrill. "It truly is the driver in this program.''

(Dan Freedman can be reached at 202-298-6920 or at the e-mail address dan(at)hearstdc.com).