Arsenal prepares to destroy chemicals

This is the first in a series of articles examining chemical weapons disposal at the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

By Amy Riggin
OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

In a matter of weeks the Army is expected to begin disposing of rockets, landmines and ton containers brought here from other production facilities as early as 1945.

The Pine Bluff Arsenal stores 12 percent of the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile -- munitions filled with nerve agents and bulk containers of mustard agent -- in earth-covered concrete igloos.

Specifically, according to Randy Long, the disposal facility’s site project manager, the Arsenal’s stockpile includes M55 rockets containing GB, or sarin, and VX; landmines containing VX; and ton containers (large steel containers) filled with HD and HT mustard, or blister, agent.

The stockpile will be processed in campaigns using incineration, with sarin rockets being the first munitions to be destroyed.

“GB rockets pose the highest risk to the community,” said Stephen DePew, project general manager for Washington Group International, the contractor hired by the Army to dispose of chemical weapons here and at other stockpile sites.

Long said there are four times as many sarin rockets as VX rockets stored at the Arsenal. They were brought here from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal at Colorado during the Cold War era between 1961 and 1965.

DePew noted that the specific amount of munitions and containers filled with agent has been considered “sensitive information” since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on American soil. It had been declassified in the early 1990s, he said, but now officials “do not release the exact numbers.”

“That’s the bottom line,” DePew said. “It’s gone from one extreme back to the other.”

Also prior to the terrorist attacks, Long said, the mustard agent was stored in a high-security area outdoors. Those containers were subsequently moved to igloos.

The next campaign will dispose of VX rockets, which were brought here from the Newport Chemical Depot at Indiana between 1961 and 1962. Then landmines containing VX, which were also shipped here from Indiana between 1961 and 1963, will be destroyed.

Long said the Arsenal’s risk assessment on chemical agents was done in 1987. At that time, its operating permits and plans were adjusted “to align with the findings of the risk assessment.”

“At one point, we planned to process VX last,” he said.

But now the Arsenal’s plans are to destroy the mustard agents last.

The HD agent-filled containers came here from Aberdeen Proving Ground at Maryland in 1945 and the HT agent came from Ontario, Canada between 1947 and 1948.

Long said the Arsenal’s stockpile of mustard agent is predominantly HT, with a limited number of HD ton containers.

In terms of chemical agent weight, Long said the Arsenal’s stockpile is about 80 percent mustard agent. But there is a much larger quantity of nerve agent munitions, he said. In fact, the Arsenal has the country’s largest inventory of M55 rockets.

“None of the chemical agents that we currently store in our stockpile were produced at Pine Bluff,” he said, adding that it’s a common misconception that they were.

Even the BZ agent that was destroyed at the Arsenal between 1988 and 1990 was produced commercially and shipped here, where it was loaded into munitions in the early 1960s. More than 150,000 munitions containing BZ were incinerated during a 22-month period.

“What’s really unique about Pine Bluff is that Pine Bluff is in a situation where this is the second chemical demilitarization project to take place at this location,” Long said. “Members of this community know the history lesson very well because a lot of the folks who work in the facility right now began their chemical demilitarization career as part of the BZ project.”

The United States is disposing of its chemical weapons stockpile under the guidelines of the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty ratified by 65 countries that came into force in 1997.

“The original provisions of the treaty show a deadline of 2007 with an opportunity to extend to 2012,” Long said. “If you look at our schedule you’ll see that probably the earliest we’ll finish will be 2010.”

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons at The Hague, Netherlands will have inspection teams on site at the Arsenal to monitor every phase of disposal, he said.

Not only are the weapons in the stockpile obsolete, some of the munitions are leaking, which poses a danger to surrounding communities. Long said the munitions have far exceeded their shelf life of about 30 years, but said Pine Bluff is “fortunate” in that less than 50 of its rockets are leaking.

All of the leaking rockets contain sarin and will be the last of the sarin-filled rockets to be incinerated.

The Arsenal annually tests a certain number of rockets to determine if they’re leaking. The “leakers” have been packed in steel containers and moved to a separate igloo.

“We have a very well-behaved inventory,” he said. “Even though we have the largest number of rockets, we have very few leaking rockets, whereas the Anniston inventory had hundreds of leakers.”