posted 08-22-2002 09:46 PM               

U.S. Destroying Chemical Weapons

By PAUL FOY
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SALT LAKE CITY- Six years after the job started, the Deseret Chemical Depot has destroyed 44 percent of the nation's largest stockpile of chemical weapons, officials said Thursday.

The remaining stockpile at the site 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City is scheduled to be destroyed by 2004, but the incinerator was closed July 15 after two maintenance workers were exposed to residual amounts of sarin nerve agent.

The workers, who were wearing charcoal respirators, were treated for minor symptoms and released that day in good health, Army spokesman Maj. Rudy Burwell said Thursday.

He said the plant will reopen within weeks, after a safety report is done. The depot has destroyed more than 6,000 tons of sarin, a highly volatile nerve agent that can paralyze the lungs.

It had been stored in bombs, rockets, warheads and bulk containers. The depot next will destroy 1,300 tons of VX, a more toxic but less volatile nerve agent that has the consistency of vegetable oil. It's contained in mines, rockets, warheads and aircraft tanks designed to spray a deadly mist.

Finally, the depot will move on to 6,100 tons of mustard gas, a blister agent that can dissolve tissue on contact.

The campaign started Aug. 22, 1996, when the incinerator began burning the depot's 13,616 tons of chemical warfare agents - weapons the U.S. military has never used in combat.

They are being destroyed under international treaties signed by more than 200 countries. Utah once stored 42.3 percent of the nation's stockpile of chemical warfare agents. Now that's down to 25 percent.

While the job is expected to be done by 2004, the depot has missed earlier deadlines and almost anything can set back the effort. State regulators can't say for certain when they think the last chemical weapon will be destroyed.

"It's a tough question. There's still some unknowns in the stockpile," said Marty Gray, who oversees the Army depot for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "There have been so many dates that have come and gone." Seven other sites around the nation and one in the central Pacific Ocean also store U.S. chemical weapons.

Gov. Mike Leavitt used the six-year anniversary to declare Utah residents are safer.

"The disposal of the chemical weapons stockpile is a great example of how regulators can work collaboratively to solve environmental problems in a safe, efficient and responsible manner," Leavitt said.

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posted 09-20-2002 10:54 PM               

Army Postpones Chemical Disposal

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANNISTON, Ala.- The Army has postponed plans to begin burning Cold War-era chemical weapons at its new incinerator next month, citing new objections from state environmental officials.

The Army's spokesman for the project, Mike Abrams, said burning will probably not begin until after Jan. 1.

The Army had planned to begin destroying 2,254 tons of deadly Cold War-era chemical weapons at the Anniston Army Depot in late October. But the state Department of Environmental Management asked for a delay Sept. 12, complaining that the Army's laboratory burn tests were not done according to the procedure approved by the agency.

Abrams said the tests will be redone to meet the state's objections.

The announcement Friday came just hours after The Birmingham News reported that Army officials exchanged e-mails outlining a plan to deflect criticism of the incinerator by embarrassing local officials over their stand on emergency response training. But Abrams said the newspaper's report did not influence the timing of the announcement. In the Pentagon e-mails, the officials said they would challenge Alabama to beef up its emergency response training and then publicize the state's refusal.

Local officials object to holding training exercises without the protective suits and other equipment they have demanded. Alabama officials who read the e-mails reacted angrily.

"It is alarming, to say the least, that there are people more interested in building a record to cover their own butts than the safety of the people of Alabama," Gov. Don Siegelman told the News.

The Army did not immediately answer questions by The Associated Press about the e-mails.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2002/sep/20/092001511.html

posted 09-22-2002 10:31 PM               

Myself, along with a couple good family friends and my mother, all have a pretty solid foundation in the destruction of former chemical weapons. I studied it in college, and friends and my mother all work for one of many civilian contract companies that do the actual testing, studies and remediation. Most have been in the business for many years, and have served (or are serving) as project managers on various weapons disposal projects, including ones in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Rocky Flats out in Colorado.

First off, Alabama's environmental agency isn't the only one that has to sign off on approval. The EPA and the DoD environmental auditors all do the same thing, and in most cases that I've seen the EPA generally has tighter tolerances than many (especially southern) state agencies.

Incineration is a common way to dispose of old chemical weapons, many of which were buried in impromptu "disposal" sites, and are in very poor shape, and some even leak. Incineration is so common that I doubt the contractor didn't know what they were doing or was attempting to lie about it.

In many cases, the STATE agencies actually get in the way. One case, my mom asked to install several monitoring wells, and the state only would approve half the number requested because of red tape. You have to understand that politics drives many state environmental agencies much more so than the EPA. Louisiana's DEQ (the state I went to college in) is notorious for picking and choosing when to apply certain standards.