Tooele Transcript Bulletin

June 7, 2001

After contentious hearings,
senators berate disposal program

by Jeff Schmerker
Staff Writer

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby are calling for cooperation between the Pentagon and Congress to restructure and reform the Army's chemical weapons disposal program.

The requests, made in separate letters to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, come on the heels of a Senate Defense Appropriations hearing in Washington, D.C. where anti-incineration activists released internal Army documents, which said the nation's chemical weapons destruction campaign would miss international disposal treaty deadlines by several years. The letter also comes as stockpile sites in Oregon and Alabama draw closer to agent disposal operations.

In his letter, McConnell expressed his "frustration with the alarming lack of oversight and accountability of the disposal program" and he accused the Army of "providing misleading testimony and ignoring the concerns raised by citizens who are directly impacted by this program." McConnell also accuses the Army of "obfuscation in their response to the deadline documents presented to the committee by anti-incineration watchdogs Chemical Weapons Working Group." After the memo's release, Army spokespersons said the document was a pessimistic calculation of a worst-case scenario.

Jim Hendricks, site manager for the Tooele incinerator, said that chemical weapons disposal operations would be done by 2007, if not sooner.

But McConnell's letter reads: "Hundreds of thousands of citizens live in the immediate danger zone around these weapons. This is not the kind of program that should be run with an emphasis on public relations in lieu of safety and candor. Too much is at stake."

At the April hearing, an angry McConnell said: "If Gen. Washington had run the Continental Army the way our chemical weapons destruction efforts have been managed, it is an absolute certainty that we would still be sipping tea and dining on crumpets."

In his May 18 letter to Rumsfeld, Sen. Shelby blasts the chemical disposal program because "the lack of accountability within this program," he says, "has led to counterproductive finger pointing and dangerous inefficiency." This has left communities worried, said Shelby, "because of the cloud of distrust that continues to surround this program."

The senators have long been critics of the chemical weapons disposal program. McConnell has expressed concern of the structure of the chemical weapons disposal organization and Shelby has been concerned with the emergency preparedness program. Sen. McConnell joined Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, in calling for the Anniston burner to be shut down until the Army comes up with a "safe destruction process and emergency preparedness plans that meet maximum protection standards."

Anti-incineration activists, such as Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, quickly moved to support the senators, actions.

"The chemical demilitarization program exists outside any normal chain of command which has allowed it to mislead Congress and the American people for the past 15 years " and get away with it," said Craig Williams, a spokesman for the group. "This must stop immediately."

One of those worried counties, Calhoun County, Alabama, home to Anniston Army Depot and a nearly-complete chemical weapons burner modeled on the Tooele arms burner, jumped into the fray with a May 15 letter to the Army which called the possible 12-year long destruction mission as opposed to the four-year timetable promised by the Department of Defense "an outrage and an insult to our community" and a "terrible new development."

Though the Army dismissed the extended timetable as a worst-case scenario, an investigation by the independent Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress backed up documents and calculations presented by the Chemical Weapons Working Group.

"For the past decade, the Army has told us it could destroy the entire chemical weapons stockpile at (Anniston Army Depot) in less than four years," said the Calhoun County letter. "Now that the $1 billion incinerator is completed and almost $600 million over its original budget the Army has been caught once again deceiving our community."

The Calhoun County letter goes on to call the destruction program "out of control." In the April 25 Senate Defense Appropriations hearing, the Army's Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization testified that the incineration of chemical weapons could be completed by 2007, and Acting Army Secretary Joseph Westphal told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the Tooele arms destruction plant's "operations are scheduled to be completed in 2004."

After that, the Army left the hearing room and Chemical Weapons Working Group's Williams presented internal memos and his own calculations which suggested chemical weapons incineration in the U.S. will extend more than seven years beyond the 2007 international chemical weapons treaty date. The deadline allows an extension until 2012 to get rid of chemical agent but activists contend the nation will not even finish by then, though some stockpile sites, such as Tooele, should be finished.

Marilyn Daughdrill, a spokeswoman for the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization, said her department had not yet been asked to respond to the senators, and county letters but that her department's mission, regardless of outside haggling, remains the same.

"We are committed to working with the local community and are committed to making sure that the operation of any facility in that community is as safe as possible," she said. "We believe we have demonstrated the technology to be safe and our commitment remain the safety of workers and the surrounding community."

The issues over deadlines are important, say activists, who contend the Army favored incineration over other technologies because burning was the best available technology and alternative technology testing could take the U.S. beyond the treaty deadline while its tests were pending. Use of incinerators to destroy chemical agent was critical to meeting the treaty deadlines. Williams said the Army used the treaty deadline "as a club to beat communities into accepting incineration as a disposal technology, despite the existence of safe, cleaner disposal methods.

Disposal technology and emergency preparedness have become especially poignant in communities such as Anniston and Pueblo, Colo., where the incinerator's stack will be very close to neighborhoods.

The senators' letters may have had some effect: on May 21 Edward C. "Pete Aldridge, the new Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, was given oversight of the disposal program. Aldridge is three rungs down from the Secretary of Defense and has a higher command level than the former Department of Army overseer.

Ostensibly, this move would mean that the destruction program nationwide gets more attention and visibility, but whether that leads to closer oversight still remains to be seen. Lt. David Gai, a Pentagon spokesman, said the move was coincidental and occurred because the disposal program had progressed since operations began in the mid-90s.

"Various sites have been progressing along with the reduction of their stockpiles and the development of incinerators, said Gai. "It is now maturing into a program that requires additional oversight and a higher level of oversight. We have raised the bar on oversight, and that will result in a greater positive impact on the program.

But critics like Williams wonder how much good it will do. "How much attention they pay is the question,"said Williams. "How does it translate into accountability? It's a good start."