Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Army needs to improve how it monitors its chemical weapons to minimize the number of leaking weapons and other chemical agent containers, according to a report by a U.S. scientific panel.

The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the rate of chemical agent leakage from U.S. weapons could increase over time and therefore it urged the Army to install new monitoring equipment and to conduct new statistical studies of leakage rates.

The United States stores chemical weapons at eight sites around the country and has a program to destroy the weapons at each site according to the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention (see GSN, Oct. 31, 2003).

As the weapons await destruction, they are slowly experiencing chemical decomposition, a process that could corrode the weapons’ metal casings and result in leaking agent, according to the report, entitled Effects of Degraded Agent and Munitions Anomalies on Chemical Stockpile Disposal Operations. Small numbers of leaks occur routinely and the report expressed concern that the leakage rate could increase (see GSN, Sept. 3, 2003).

“The decomposition mechanism is such that agent degradation may be expected to accelerate at elevated temperatures and over long storage times,” the report says.

The report urges several measures to improve the Army’s monitoring of the situation, including modifying the way in which data is collected and stored to ease its analysis; studying whether different versions of the same chemical agents deteriorate at different speeds; and installing temperature sensors in storage “igloos” to determine if controlling the temperature could slow the rate of chemical decomposition.

Above all, the report suggests there is only one way to ensure that no chemical weapons harm site workers or nearby residents.

“The effects of leakers and other anomalies can best be minimized by the earliest possible destruction of all agents at all sites,” it says (NRC report, Feb. 4).