The U.S. military says it has destroyed more than half of its stockpile of chemical warfare agents without harming communities near the disposal sites, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 15).
"We really haven't had a serious incident throughout the life of the program concerning chemical weapons," said Greg Mahall, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency. "We're very proud of our safety record."
The Defense Department stored 31,500 tons of lethal substances such as sarin, VX and mustard agent at nine locations around the continental United States and on the Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific. Disposal operations have been completed at two sites and are under way at another five storage depots.
The Chemical Weapons Convention requires the United States to eliminate its stockpile of banned materials by 2012. Pentagon officials have said that operations might continue through 2023, largely due to two disposal plants that have yet to be built in Colorado and Kentucky. Congress last year demanded that weapons disposal be finished by 2017.
The total cost is expected to reach $34 billion.
All sites operating today involve incineration of chemical agents and munitions. Opponents have filed lawsuit against burning of chemical weapons and continue to question the Army's assertion that emissions pose no threat, AP reported.
"If you go by their body count so far, I guess it has been a success," said Craig Williams, head of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, which has pushed the Pentagon to use disposal technology other than incineration. "The fact is we still don't know what is coming out of the stacks or what the long-term effect will be."
At least one resident near a chemical depot in Anniston, Ala., expressed little concern about the potential danger posed by weapons incineration.
"I'll be glad when it's gone, but I don't think about it very much," said Joyce Walker. She and other residents have not bothered to open safety gear provided by the military.
The depot has eliminated its stocks of rockets and artillery shells that contained VX and sarin nerve agents, leaving thousands of land mines filled with VX and mustard agent munitions still to be destroyed.
"From a risk perspective to the community, over 98 percent of the risk is gone," said Anniston site manager Timothy Garrett. "The risk with the land mines is so small it's hard to put on a chart, and there is no risk to the community from the mustard gas" (Jay Reeves, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 5).
The Army and the Oregon Environmental Quality Department, after 11 years and three risk assessments, have concluded that weapons incineration at the Umatilla Chemical Depot poses no threat to area residents, the Hermiston Herald reported yesterday.
The conclusion is that "chemical weapons bad, incineration good," according to state senior environmental toxicologist Bruce Hope. "It's not like we're arriving at the decision half-cocked," he said.
A toxicologist for an environmental group disputed the finding, saying the facility is emitting harmful materials such as mercury and arsenic.
"We have to assume that they are the worst," said Peter deFur of Environmental Stewardship Concepts. "The primary concern is the air" (Karen Hutchinson-Talaski, Hermiston Herald, June 4).