My name is Ross Vincent. I am a chemist and chemical engineer with more than 30 years of experience in engineering research and environmental protection. I have served as an advisor to a number of government agencies at the local, state and federal levels, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Defense, & the Department of Energy, and as Chair of the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association.

I currently serve as a member of the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens' Advisory Commission and as Senior Policy Advisor to the Sierra Club.

Chemical neutralization is a simple and safe -- even elegant -- way to render chemical warfare agents -- like those stored here at the Anniston Army Depot -- virtually harmless.

We know that's true because the even the Army agrees that it's true - and because of neutralization's long history of use in the chemical industry and in military applications, including the detoxification of chemical warfare agents.

Hydrolysis - or "chemical neutralization" as it is often called -- is chemistry just about as basic as it gets. It is simply reaction with water.

Obviously, not everything reacts with water. And, sometimes in the real world, you may want to heat the water up or add something to adjust the acidity in order to help the reaction along. But when hydrolysis works, as it clearly does for all of the chemical warfare agents in the U.S. stockpile, it offers an extremely attractive solution. In this particular case, it is key to rapid reduction of the agent risks posed by the U.S. stockpile.

Hydrolysis has been a mainstay in the chemical industry for as long as there has been a chemical industry - for centuries.

It has been used by the military for many years as the primary disposal technique for chemical agent in the field.

In my own state, Colorado, the Army neutralized more than 8,000 tons of sarin over a fouryear period during the 1970s.

During the 1990s, Army researchers at Edgewood in MD conducted extensive studies on the hydrolysis of chemical warfare agents. Those studies have contributed to the development of mobile units that allow the Anny's non-stockpile chemical weapons program to deal with chemical materiel discovered at sites around the country.

In addition, hydrolysis has been chosen by the Army as the primary agent destruction method at two U.S. stockpile sites - Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, home of the Arrny's chemical weapons program, and at the Newport chemical weapons storage facility in Indiana. Full-scale neutralization chemical demilitarization facilities are currently under construction at both of those sites.

And the Pentagon's Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment program has demonstrated the effectiveness of four complete systems for processing chemical munitions and all of their components. Three of those systems use hydrolysis as the agent destruction step in multi-stage munitions demilitarization facilities.

Early next year, the Pentagon is scheduled to announce its decision about the technology to be used at the chemical weapons storage facility in my hometown -- Pueblo, CO. Neutralization is the overwhelming choice of the people of Pueblo and we are confident that the decisionmakers will agree.

A similar decision for the site in KY is scheduled for a few months later.

The bottom line is clear. Neutralization works. It's simple, straightforward and controllable. It's by-products are considerably less toxic than the original chemical agents and, because the residual contaminants are all contained in a water solution, obtaining federal and state permits for neutralization facilities is generally much easier and faster than for many industrial processes, including most notably incineration.

We have within easy reach - here in Anniston, back home in Pueblo, and at all of the chemical weapons facilities in this country and elsewhere -- a simple, safe approach that can eliminate the agent risk that currently haunts our communities, achieve compliance with the international chemical weapons treaty, and get us there 5 - 10 years faster than the current program can.

We need to get going.