The U.S. Defense Department as of today has destroyed more than half of the chemical weapons stored since 1961 at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama (see GSN, Aug. 4).
The Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility since August 2003 has incinerated more than 331,100 rockets, artillery shells and land mines filled with sarin and VX nerve agents. The plant is now destroying VX land mines and still must be used to eliminate hundreds of thousands of weapons that contain mustard blister agent.
"We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go, and we can't lose sight of that fact," facility site project manager Robert Love said in a press release (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Sept. 29).