But officials at the Army's Deseret Chemical Depot, in Tooele County, say they're still planning to be rid of their cache of deadly mustard agent by 2016 - and hopefully sooner.
The U.S. State Department said in April it would not meet a 2007 international Chemical Weapons Convention deadline for the complete destruction of its stockpile and thus had requested an extension to 2012.
But at the same time, officials conceded, they did not plan to be done by the new deadline, either. Deseret was named as one of six chemical weapons destruction facilities - including two still being built - expected to be in business past 2012.
The April report said the effort to destroy more than 27,000 tons of sarin, VX, mustard and other agents had proved "extraordinarily difficult," blaming delays on the difficulties of obtaining environmental permits, meeting community emergency planning requirements and "work stoppage to investigate and resolve problems."
But it was vague about the date by which the U.S. government expected to get the job done. Now, Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib said, planners have come to the conclusion that it will take until 2023.
Isleib didn't immediately provide details on the reasons for the most recent delay. The new end date is 29 years later than first envisioned in the 1980s, when the U.S. entered into negotiations for the destruction of its chemical weapons.
Critics say there is some good news in the Pentagon's latest setback, however. The uncompleted facilities, in Pueblo, Colo., and Richmond, Ky., will be using a chemical neutralization process rather than the method of incineration used in Tooele.
While the Pentagon insists incineration is safe, many environmentalists and concerned local residents remain unconvinced.
"The neutralization approach doesn't have all the problems," of incinerators, said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group.
Based in Kentucky, Williams' organization helped persuade the Army to use neutralization, a process by which dangerous chemicals are separated and eliminated using hot water, rather than incineration at the Richmond plant.
Williams said he remains hopeful that a lawsuit filed by his organization might stop incineration operations, though wary environmentalists in Utah say they're not convinced anything, short of a major accident, will stop the Army from completing its Deseret burn.
The chairman of a group of National Research Council scientists said last week that the treaty-breaking backlog in the destruction of chemical stockpiles could be alleviated if the U.S. Army would adopt "faster and more efficient" technologies being used in Europe and Asia.
"It could be done fairly quickly at this point," said Richard Ayen, director of technology at the Houston-based Waste Management, Inc.
The three technologies Ayen's group studied "have now been tested with chemical weapons," he said.
An Army spokesman dismissed the notion that new technologies could be introduced to the process without causing even greater delays.
"There are some who argue that the technology is already out there, especially those vehemently against incineration," said Greg Mahall, spokesman for the Army Chemical Materials Agency.
But the facilities used to destroy chemical weapons "are not cookie-cutter facilities," Mahall said. "You can't take one part out and put one part in. You'd have to build a whole new facility."
And "in today's budget climate," Mahall said, the cost would be prohibitive.
mlaplante@sltrib.com