Chemical Weapons Lawsuit Dismissed

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop the Army’s plan to destroy chemical weapons at four sites around the country. Last week, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected a challenge brought by the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Kentucky-based watchdog organization. The group claimed that plans to incinerate World War II-era stockpiles of nerve agents and mustard gas would harm the environment and put public safety at risk. They wanted the Army to conduct more tests to see if there were ways to eliminate the weapons other than incineration. But Judge Richard K. Eaton ruled that the watchdog group failed to prove that “alternatives to incineration are readily available and capable of destroying the quantity and type of chemical warfare agents and munitions at the challenged sites.” The storage sites at issue in the suit are in Anniston, Ala.; Pine Bluff, Ark.; Tooele, Utah; and Umatilla, Ore. Congress has ordered the Army to destroy the U.S. stockpile of chemical warfare agents to comply with the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty.