Richmond Register
October 14, 2002

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Chemical weapons should go

"Necessity is the mother of invention." That adage has once again proven to be accurate.

Methods once deemed either technologically impossible or too costly are on the verge of being employed to "neutralize" chemical weapons at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County. That's a far safer method than the incineration method the U.S. Army once insisted was the only practical means of destroying the aging weapons.

A new report by the National Research Council for the Department of Defense studied alternatives to incineration and found that neutralization is a "mature, safe and effective" alternative for disposing of the depot's 500 tons of deadly chemical agents.

After years of studying alternatives, the Pentagon is expected to make4 a decision by the end of this year about how the weapons at the Blue Grass plant in Richmond will be destroyed. By treaty, the weapons must be destroyed by 2007.

It was not so long ago that the Army was insisting that incineration -- either on site or at another location -- not only was the safest way to destroy the weapons, it was the only way. Other technology simply had not been developed.

Sen. Mitch McConnell is being credited with derailing the Pentagon's plan to burn the weapons. Using his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, he included language in military appropriations bills that prohibited incineration. That essentially forced the Pentagon to look at other methods, and it seems neutralization not only is practical and safe but affordable.

The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, conducted the 31-month study after it was asked by the Department of Defense to look at three alternative technologies for disposal. The resulting report said neutralization "is ready for immediate implementation."

That should end the debate over how to destroy the weapons. The only question is when to do it. Soon, one hopes. We will all feel a bit safer when those aging chemical weapons are no longer stored in Kentucky.

The Daily Independent Ashland