for more information contact: Craig Williams (859)986-7565
or (859)302-1103
for immediate release: Saturday, September 29, 2001
Internal memos and briefing documents from a high-powered Defense review team show that the Army's chemical weapons incineration program continues to be plagued with cost overruns and schedule slippage. Originally estimated to cost $1.7 billion and be completed by 1994, the latest review, done by the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) pegs the price tag at $24 billion and shows that only one out of six incineration sites has a chance to complete the job by the 2007 Chemical Weapons Treaty deadline.
An internal briefing document obtained by the CWWG shows that when a schedule risk, at a 50% confidence level, is added to the most current timelines, three sites (Oregon, Arkansas and Kentucky) won't even make the Treaty deadline extension date of 2012. According to the chart, Kentucky only has a 50% chance of completing it's disposal by December 2017.
Without the schedule risk only Utah makes the 2007 deadline. With the risk factored in, even that site misses this date by 4 years.
The briefing document shows only the two sites deploying non-incineration approaches (Maryland and Indiana) meeting the 2007 Treaty deadline.
In testimony presented to the Senate in April, CWWG director, Craig Williams, presented earlier internal documents to Congress which showed the latest revelations to be known, at that time, by the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization (PMCD) Office - the Army agency in charge of destroying the munitions. PMCD denied the cost and schedule figures presented by Williams and accused him of "misusing the data." Two weeks later the Congressional Research Service validated Williams' calculations, but PMCD continued to deny the increased cost and extended schedules.
According to today's Los Angeles Times, a senior defense official said the Army's testimony in April had been misleading. "It approached the level of lying to Congress," he said.
"I'm sure PMCD will come up with some public relations gimmick to say these latest projections are not accurate either," said Williams. "They are much better at spinning the truth than they are at safely disposing of weapons."
Williams and the CWWG, long time critics of the incineration technology, point to the recent memo from the DAB leader to Undersecretary of Defense Edward "Pete" Aldridge which cites "processing rates, technology immaturity and design inefficiencies" as some of the key factors driving up costs and pushing the schedule.
According to Williams, "PMCD continues to sell their 1982 choice of incineration to communities as 'mature and efficient', 'safe and protective' when it is none of these. We can document 16 live chemical warfare agent releases from the stacks of the existing incinerators in addition to chronic emissions of very hazardous pollutants. The number of modifications to these plants number in the hundreds, possibly thousands. The bottom line is these plants are unsafe and the capability of this technology is not what's being advertised."
Since the April Senate Hearings several letters have been sent
by Congressional Members to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld calling
for the in-depth reform of the U.S. Chemical Stockpile Disposal
Program.
"Until there is a top to bottom restructuring of the program
the Congress and the public will continue being mislead and the
citizens in communities put at an unnecessary risk. The time
is long past for demanding accountability from this program. The
American people deserve no less."
Copies of the DAB memo and briefing packet are available from
the CWWG office.
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