A Milestone Of Note

The Army's effort to rid the nation of its deadly arsenal of chemical weapons has been a long, costly slog, but on Aug. 30, the service reached a benchmark: destruction of 50% of the more than 3.4 million munitions in the U.S.'s declared chemical weapons stockpile. By destroying more than 1.7 million weapons, the Army has eliminated over 39%—more than 12,285 tons—of the agent tonnage originally declared.

In 1985, the U.S. publicly acknowledged possessing these chemical weapons in an arsenal that totals about 31,500 tons of agent. Then, the Army estimated that it would be able to eliminate the entire stockpile by 1994 at a cost of $1 billion. Today, the Army concedes that it may not be able to meet U.S. treaty obligations to destroy the stockpile by 2012, even at a cost now estimated at nearly $33 billion.

Still, the Army is on track to meet the chemical weapons treaty's deadline to destroy 45% of the stockpile tonnage by December 2007, a deadline the treaty's implementing agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), extended from April 2004.

"Having one-half of our originally declared number of weapons destroyed shows a tangible mark on the wall," says Michael A. Parker, director of the Army's Chemical Materials Agency (CMA). "This milestone demonstrates indisputable progress toward the overall goal: the total, safe elimination of our chemical weapons stockpile."

Even with 61% of the stockpile tonnage remaining, the Army "has reduced risks considerably at all operating destruction sites, although the risks vary from site to site," CMA spokesman Gregory Mahall says. For example, at its largest disposal site in Tooele, Utah, the Army "has eliminated almost all risks, not because of the volume of agent destroyed, but because of the type of agent destroyed," Mahall explains. "All nerve agent at Tooele has been destroyed."

At latest count, Tooele has eliminated 7,425 tons of the approximately 13,600 tons stored there. Just over 6,000 1-ton containers of mustard agent remain to be destroyed. Mustard, unlike the nerve agents, is nonvolatile, and "its chances of getting into the air are remote," says Mahall.

Craig E. Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), which opposes incineration, welcomes the 50% reduction in the stockpile of weapons. But, he notes, "it hasn't come quickly or cheaply."

Williams has lingering concerns about incineration's "impact on public health and the environment." But, he says, there's no denying that "the weapons are gone. The country, world, and especially the communities surrounding the destruction sites are safer now than they were before the weapons were destroyed."

The Army began destroying chemical weapons in 1990 at its storage facility on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean about 825 miles southwest of Honolulu. By 2000, all 2,031 tons of agent in weapons and in bulk containers were incinerated, the destruction facility shut down, and the site cleaned up. According to Mahall, the Environmental Protection Agency is still considering final closure of the site, which, he says, is now a wildlife refuge.

On the mainland, the Army began operating disposal facilities at its storage sites in Tooele in 1996 and in Anniston, Ala., in 2003. The following year, the Army's Umatilla, Ore., disposal facility came on-line. All of these are incineration facilities. To date, Anniston has destroyed 475 tons of its 2,250-ton arsenal, and Umatilla has disposed of 756 tons from its 3,700-ton stockpile.

Also, in 2004, the Army began neutralizing more than 1,600 tons of mustard agent stored in bulk in 1-ton containers at Aberdeen, Md. In January 2006, Aberdeen became the first facility within the continental U.S. to completely destroy its stockpile.

In 2005, the Army began operating another neutralization facility at Newport, Ind., and an incineration facility in Pine Bluff, Ark. According to the Army's latest count, Pine Bluff has destroyed 293 tons of its 3,800-ton stockpile, and Newport has neutralized 322 tons of its 1,270-ton arsenal, which is composed solely of the nerve agent VX.

The neutralization at Newport, involving supercritical water oxidation, is a two-stage process. The Army would like to transport the wastewater produced in Indiana to a DuPont hazardous-waste treatment facility in New Jersey for secondary treatment. Because of opposition from the states of Delaware and New Jersey and several environmental groups, the Army has not transferred the wastewater and is instead storing it on-site.

Without secondary treatment, OPCW doesn't consider the nerve agent destroyed. The U.S., therefore, receives no credit for the first stage of the destruction process and cannot apply the quantity of VX now rendered less toxic toward meeting the 45% deadline.

The Army has yet to build neutralization facilities at its storage sites in Blue Grass, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo. According to some official schedules, Pueblo is slated to begin operations in the 2010-12 timeframe and close down by 2014. Blue Grass will come on-line sometime between 2012 and 2014 and shut down as late as 2015.

According to Katherine B. DeWeese, those dates are not firm and are expected to be adjusted by the Defense Acquisition Board, which sets the schedules for Blue Grass and Pueblo. DeWeese is a spokeswoman for Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives, the Army group overseeing destruction of the weapons at these two sites. DeWeese says the board met in late August but has not yet made the new schedules public.

The 1997 chemical weapons treaty mandates that all signatory countries possessing chemical weapons dispose of them by April 2007. The treaty allows for a one-time five-year extension to April 2012 but is silent on what happens if countries are unable to meet the extended deadline. The U.S. has asked for the extension, but OPCW's Executive Council has not formally granted the request, although it is expected to do so.

Even when granted, the U.S. will likely not be able to comply with the extended deadline. Blue Grass and Pueblo won't meet the 2012 deadline. Newport might, but only if the wastewater is treated in New Jersey. If transportation is blocked, the Army will have to revert to its original plan to build a secondary treatment plant on-site in Indiana, thus delaying the complete destruction of all the VX stored there.

Prospects for the other sites are more dismal. According to an April 2006 Defense Department schedule of estimated completion dates, Tooele's stocks will not be eliminated until 2015. Anniston's and Pine Bluff's stockpiles are estimated to be destroyed by 2016, and Umatilla's by 2017.

Williams believes the April 2006 schedule is reasonable. "After 15 years of optimistic projections, the Army now has a grip on a more realistic schedule."

Williams would be expected to say that: In 2001, he told C&EN, "CWWG predicted that the completion dates for the incineration sites would be approximately what the Army is now saying are its conservative completion dates."

CMA's Parker admits that "meeting the April 2012 deadline is going to be a challenge." The schedules listed in the Defense Department document, he says, are where the Army expects to be if it doesn't learn from past problems. "We will continue to seek ways to take those schedules and move them closer to the 2012 deadline." Already, he says, "we are seeing improved destruction rates while also continuously improving our safety performance."

The latest destruction figures tally progress. Since Aug. 30, the Army has destroyed another 7,650 munitions. This translates to a total of more than 12,600 tons of chemical agent destroyed, or 40% of the stockpile the U.S. declared in 1985.

Parker expects this progress to be sustained and "CMA to continue to be the world's leader and have the greatest level of expertise in achieving" destruction of the U.S. chemical arsenal. It's not an idle boast.

With 40,000 metric tons (40,640 tons) of chemical agents stockpiled at seven storage sites, Russia's chemical arsenal is about a third greater than the U.S.'s. Russia began destroying its weapons in late 2002 and, to date, "has destroyed about 2,200 metric tons (2,235 tons) or 5.5%" of its stockpile, says Paul F. Walker, director of Global Green USA's Legacy Program. Unlike the U.S., Russia employs only neutralization to destroy its weapons.

"The 2,200 metric tons represent 1,143 metric tons (1,161 tons) at Gorny and over 1,100 metric tons (1,118 tons) at Kambarka," Walker explains. The Gorny facility is about 650 miles southeast of Moscow and is the smallest of Russia's seven storage sites. By December 2005, three years after start-up, Russia completely neutralized all of the lewisite—an arsenic-containing agent—and mustard agents stored in bulk at Gorny.

Russia began operating its second destruction facility at Kambarka, about 750 miles east of Moscow, this March. Kambarka holds nearly 6,350 metric tons (6,452 tons) of bulk lewisite stored in 80 railroad tank cars. Russia expects to complete destruction of the Kambarka stockpile by 2009.

On Sept. 8, Russia officially opened its third destruction facility in Maradikovsky, about 300 miles northeast of Moscow. This facility holds about 7,400 metric tons (7,518 tons) of the nerve agents VX, soman, and sarin as well as a lewisite/mustard agent mixture. Full operations are set to begin in December 2008, and Russia hopes to completely eliminate this stockpile by 2012.

Russia is under some pressure to meet its treaty obligations to destroy 20% of its entire arsenal by April 2007, five years beyond the treaty's original 20% deadline. Maradikovsky will have to play a large role in meeting that looming deadline.

According to Walker's calculations, Russia will have to destroy about 57% of Maradikovsky's stockpile—more than 4,200 metric tons (4,267 tons) of chemical agent—over the next seven months in order for it to meet the April 2007 deadline. That amounts to over 525 metric tons (533 tons) per month-a pretty steep order considering prior U.S. and Russian destruction rates.