Some Colorado residents are unhappy with a U.S. Defense Department proposal to detonate 125,000 mustard agent munitions at the Pueblo Chemical Depot, the Pueblo Chieftain reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 9).
Kevin Flamm, manager of the Pentagon's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program, requested support yesterday from a local citizens advisory commission for a plan to explode approximately 16 percent of the 780,000 chemical weapons stored at Colorado site. The plan was developed by the National Security Council as a means of speeding up U.S. chemical disarmament.
The United States is required under the Chemical Weapons Convention to destroy all of its chemical weapons by April 2012. The Pentagon has said it will not be able to meet that deadline, though it is considering options that would allow it to make a congressional deadline of 2017. Work now is slated to finish in 2021.
The U.S. Army is managing all current chemical disarmament operations at several incineration facilities. When its portion of the effort is complete, around 2012, there is a projected three-year suspension of disposal activities until a large ACWA water neutralization facility in Pueblo begins operating. That would be followed three years later by the inception of operations at a similar plant at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.
Flamm said the Obama administration's negotiating stance would be weakened in arms reduction talks if it seemed that the United States had halted chemical weapons destruction.
As a means of "bridging the gap," Flamm's agency would use detonation chambers to destroy 125,000 artillery shells at Pueblo and 15,000 rounds at Blue Grass.
The Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission told Flamm that it would prepare a letter in support of detonating an estimated 1,000 leaking munitions at the depot. However, the letter does not support "at this time" disposing of any other munitions except through the agreed-upon water neutralization method.
Flamm was questioned at yesterday's public meeting on how detonating munitions was different than incinerating them. Colorado residents have already cut off efforts to dispose of the Pueblo stockpile through incineration.
Commission member Jeff Chostner questioned whether the detonation method would ultimately supplant the plan for neutralization, becoming a de facto "back door" to incineration.
"These are not incinerators, this is a very different type of combustion technology," Flamm said.
Commission member Ross Vincent said he was "really distressed by the notion of being asked to make a decision to add another 125,000 rounds that could be processed safely through the (water neutralization) process" (John Norton, Pueblo Chieftain, Dec. 10).