138th Year... and still on the job!	Friday November 10, 2006

Russia lagging in destruction of chemical weapons

Ross Vincent

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Americans aren't the only ones wrestling with what to do with the byproducts of destroyed chemical weapons.

Ross Vincent, a Sierra Club senior policy advisor, found that expected problems with agent hydrolysate have forced Russian officials to ask for a deadline extension from the organization monitoring treaty compliance, and he's worried that could have ramifications for Pueblo.

Vincent was in Moscow last week serving as a panelist at the Eighth Russian National Dialogue on Chemical Weapons Demilitarization. He was invited to the conference by the sponsoring agency, Green Cross International. That's the group founded by former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to promote peace and environmental issues.

One Green Cross cause is providing assistance to countries that are destroying their stockpiles of chemical weapons under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention. That treaty calls for the elimination of the weapons by 2012, but many countries, including those with the largest remaining arsenals - the United States and Russia - are experiencing delays.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this year that the United States would not meet the treaty deadline. The stockpile of 780,000 artillery shells and mortar rounds at the Pueblo Chemical Depot probably won't be destroyed until 2020, according to the Pentagon's latest projections.

In the United States, the problem is money. Officials say that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have made it impossible to spend more than $150 million a year on the Pueblo project, even though the entire cost possibly could be cut if the project were accelerated.

Another issue is what will be done with hydrolysate, that's the water left over from the treatment of the mustard agent with hot water and caustic sodium hydroxide. Mustard agent hydrolysate contains thiodiglycol, a common solvent used in paint and ink, and residual sodium hydroxide. Federal officials want to ship the hydrolysate off-site for treatment and are lobbying the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens' Advisory Commission to change its position calling for on-site biotreatment.

Those opposed to that point out that environmental groups in other areas are expected to use legislation or litigation to block shipments, which could cause delays in the destruction program here.

Vincent, a member of the Colorado commission, said that Russia has its own hydrolysate issues and has asked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague, Netherlands, for an extension of its deadline.

Vincent said it appears that at all seven of its stockpile locations, Russia will use a water-based system similar to that planned for Pueblo. However, he said, there are worries that the hydrolysate from the Russian weapons contains other contaminants that would complicate biotreatment. "It would kill the bugs," Vincent said. In the biotreatment planned here, bacteria would break down the thiodiglycol and sodium hydroxide into salts and a sludge that could be hauled to a hazardous waste dump.

He said that the Russians continue to say they are determined to meet the deadline for destruction of the actual weapons. Unlike American weapons, he said, the Russian shells do not have explosives inside them - fuses and bursters were to be screwed into the shells just before use and that makes things go a lot faster. The weapons here all have explosives inside, which requires the additional step of robotically removing them before the mustard agent can be washed out.

What Russia wants from the OPCW is more time to destroy its hydrolysate. Vincent worries that if that happens, the Defense Department could slow things down even more here. "If the OPCW gives in to pressure, then all the international pressure to destroy the hydrolysate evaporates at the same time. The international pressure would go away and that's not insignificant."

Another concern of the Green Cross group, he said, is the apparent desire of the United States to back away from efforts to help the Russian demilitarization program directly. He said that it appears that this country wants to just provide a lump sum to pay for the work and stop an existing program that has U.S. representatives working with the Russians.

While diplomats from all over the world attended the conference, Vincent said he was told U.S. State Department officials were advised not to attend. Without U.S. involvement, he said, there's a big worry about what could happen to the Russian weapons because security there is not as tight as it is around U.S. stockpiles.

In some cases, he said, weapons are going to be transported as much as 20 miles from arsenals to destruction plants.