Sao Tome and Principe Ratifies Chemical Weapons Convention

Sao Tome and Principe last week submitted its instruments of accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention (see GSN, June 3).  The small African island country will become the 154th party to the treaty when its accession takes effect Oct. 9 (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons release, Sept. 12).

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Colorado Community Wins Effort to Keep Chemical Destruction in its Backyard

The U.S. Army has advanced its chemical weapons destruction plans for its Pueblo, Colo., facility, where the Army intends to eliminate mustard gas stocks using a chemical neutralization process, the Pueblo Chieftain reported today (see GSN, July 9).

After receiving a request from a local group, the Army has agreed to conduct more of the destruction process in Pueblo instead of shipping potentially hazardous materials to other facilities.

Pueblo County Commissioner John Klomp last night released a letter announcing the decision from Michael Parker, program manager for the Army’s Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program.

To neutralize mustard gas, the Army plans first to remove the agent from artillery shells and mix it with large amounts of water and caustics.  This produces thiodiglycol, a less hazardous substance than the mustard agent.  In a second stage, the thiodiglycol is treated by introducing microorganisms into the solution that break it down further into a sludge that can be introduced into existing water treatment facilities.

The Army had originally considered shipping the thiodiglycol solution out of Pueblo, but community leaders complained about the shipping risks and asked the Army to conduct the second stage locally.  Keeping that process is expected to create 40 additional jobs and bring in $80 million more to Pueblo.

Parker’s letter said the Army still plans to destroy the artillery shells’ propellants and storage pallets at another plant (John Norton, Pueblo Chieftain, Sept. 12).

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Alabama Senator, State Officials Call for Improved Air Monitoring at Anniston Incinerator

U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Alabama officials and community activists have all called for improved monitoring of the air surrounding a chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot, the Birmingham News reported today (see GSN, Sept. 11).

Shelby has cosponsored a Senate resolution asking the secretary of the army to develop and initiate a program to upgrade air monitoring systems at all U.S. chemical weapons disposal sites.  In a statement, Shelby said the Army “should established a new standard for agent monitoring” by examining the use of more modern, real-time systems.

Members of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission have said they also plan to request a demonstration of new air monitoring technology.

“This community deserves the best technology, and with the best technology, whatever that is, comes a higher level of trust and comfort,” said Pete Conroy, director of Jacksonville State University’s Environment Policy and Information Center.

The depot currently lacks alarms installed around its perimeter, and air monitors inside the incinerator complex experience false alarms and long verification delays, according to the News.  The Army has installed within the incinerator stack a single monitor that continuously tests for sarin.  There are also monitors that test for basic air pollutants, but do not test for hazardous materials that are produced through chemical weapons incineration, such as PCBs and dioxins, the News reported. 

The incinerator will only test once for hazardous air during operations, and then the monitors will be disconnected, according to the News.  Alabama will assume, based on models and a successful test, that the incinerator is not releasing harmful chemicals because there is no reliable method to continuously monitor air, said Stephen Cobb, overseer of the program for the Alabama Environmental Management Department.

“That is a very small amount of material that you’re looking for,” Cobb said.  “In some cases you’re almost looking at the molecular level,” he said.

The equipment proposed by supporters of increased monitoring could continuously test for chemicals such as PCBs and dioxins, though not with the same sensitivity as the current system, according to the News.

“That’s one reason Westinghouse Anniston is fighting this so hard,” said Chemical Weapons Working Group Executive Director Craig Williams, referring to the contractor that operates the incinerator.  “They don’t want a multispectrum, real-time monitoring capability that can give you a reliable and consistent emissions reading capacity over the life of the plant,” Williams said (Katherine Bouma, Birmingham News, Sept. 11).

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Tooele Incinerator Closes for Repairs, Maintenance

Chemical incineration has been suspended at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Utah while workers repair a leaking liner in a tank that holds fluid byproduct from the plant, the Associated Press reported last week (see GSN, Sept. 3).

The repair, as well as other routine maintenance work, is expected to take one month to complete (Associated Press/KSL TV, Sept. 5).

Meanwhile, emergency responders in Tooele were scheduled to hold a drill yesterday to test their response to an accident or terrorist attack at the chemical weapons depot.

The simulation — part of the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program’s annual training exercise — was scheduled include two highly visible incidents at the same time, according to Wade Mathews, public information officer for Tooele County Emergency Management.

About 500 people were to be involved in the exercise, according to the Tooele Transcript Bulletin (Karen Scott, Tooele Transcript Bulletin, Sept. 9).

Tooele County’s Mountain West Medical Center also recently acquired a mobile decontamination unit.

“We can take this trailer wherever the individual is.  Before we had the trailer, persons who were contaminated by chemicals or other agents had to come to the hospital for help,” according to Kip Thompson, head of the hospital’s decontamination team (Mary Hammond, Tooele Transcript Bulletin, Sept. 9).

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Environmental Officials Cite Anniston Army Depot

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has charged the U.S. Army with violating its chemical weapons incineration permit for the Anniston Army Depot, but state officials acknowledged that the problems were not serious, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Sept. 5).

Among the violations were improperly marked equipment and high fluid-levels in a drainage pump, according to the Times.  Depot spokesman Mike Abrams said that Army officials are addressing the issues (Ariel Hart, New York Times, Sept. 11).

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Moroccan Terrorist Suspect Testifies to Receiving Chemical Weapons in 1980s

Mohamed Neggaoui, on trial in Morocco on allegations of involvement in a series of bombings in May in Casablanca, testified yesterday that he had received and hidden chemical weapons in the country in the 1980s, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, June 27).

Neggaoui said he had been provided the weapons by the Islamist Mujahedeen movement in Morocco, AFP reported.  He told the court that “there was no democracy nor human rights” in Morocco at that time and that “the arms could be useful in the event of a civil war” (Agence France-Presse, Sept. 9).

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