U.S. Considers Moving Chem Weapons to Speed Disposal

The U.S. Defense Department has said that the only sure way to meet a congressionally imposed deadline for chemical weapons disposal would be to relocate part of the arsenal, USA Today reported today (see GSN, Sept. 19, 2007).

Lawmakers last year demanded that the Pentagon eliminate its entire chemical stockpile by the end of 2017.  The main obstacle to that schedule comes from weapons depots at Blue Grass, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo., which do not yet have disposal plants and could extend operations to 2023.

The Pentagon identified three strategies for addressing the deadline, one of which involves moving weapons housed at the two sites to depots with existing destruction plants.  Some munitions at the Blue Grass Army Depot would be shipped to Alabama and Arkansas, while installations in Oregon and Utah would receive some weapons from the Pueblo Chemical Depot.

Laws prohibiting chemical weapons shipments would have to be revised, the Defense Department said.

The proposal met with rapid, negative responses from lawmakers in affected states and others.

“It’s shocking and irresponsible for the Department of Defense to even propose to ship large volumes of weapons of mass destruction across the highways of the United States considering the risks and atmosphere of terrorist threats,” said environmentalist Craig Williams, head of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group (Ton Vanden Brook, USA Today, July 2).

Williams said in a press release that the relocation plan would also require shifting bulk containers of warfare agent from the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon to the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah.  That would necessitate “construction of a neutralization facility at the Deseret Chemical Depot, Utah to destroy the bulk items transported from Oregon as well as those existing in the current (Utah) stockpile,” according to the Pentagon report (Chemical Weapons Working Group release, July 2).

The other options involve ramping up the pace of work in Colorado and Kentucky or simply maintaining the process as it stands, according to Representative Mark Udall (D-Colo.).  Under the latter plan, operations would conclude in Colorado in 2020 and in Kentucky in 2023 (Representative Mark Udall release, July 1).

Increasing the number of workers and conducting 24-hour-a-day operations could enable the Colorado site to finish off its stockpile of more than 2,600 tons of mustard agent by the 2017 deadline, said Kevin Flamm, program manager for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program.  That is not likely to work in Kentucky, said Flamm, whose agency is managing disposal efforts at the two sites.

The Chemical Weapons Convention requires the United States to destroy its banned stockpile in 2012.  U.S. officials have acknowledged that they cannot meet that deadline.

A spokesman said the Pentagon has not identified any of the options as better than the others (Vanden Brook, USA Today).

Flamm is expected this month to submit a cost estimate for meeting the congressional deadline, the Pueblo Chieftain reported (John Norton, Pueblo Chieftain, July 2).

“The good news is that 2017 is doable.  The bad news is that we won’t know until early next year whether the Defense Department can come up with the funds and the plans that are needed to complete weapons destruction by 2017,” Udall said in a statement.  “I believe DOD understands that Congress was serious when it passed the 2017 deadline into law, so I am hopeful that the next administration’s budget request will include the funds to make 2017 a reality” (see GSN, Jan. 15; Udall release).

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