Saturday, Nov. 16, 2013 | 3:31 p.m.
ANNISTON,
Ala. — The Pentagon spent $10.2 billion over three decades burning tons
of deadly nerve gas and other chemical weapons stored in four states —
some of the agents so deadly even a few drops can kill.
Now,
with all those chemicals up in smoke and communities freed of a threat,
the Army is in the middle of another, $1.3 billion project: Demolishing
the incinerators that destroyed the toxic materials.
In Alabama,
Oregon, Utah and Arkansas, crews are either tearing apart
multibillion-dollar incinerators or working to draw the curtain on a
drama that began in the Cold War, when the United States and the former
Soviet Union stockpiled millions of pounds of chemical weapons.
Construction
work continues at two other sites where technology other than
incineration will be used to neutralize agents chemically, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
AssociatedPress
At the
incinerator complex at the Anniston Army Depot — where sarin, VX nerve
gas and mustard gas were stored about 55 miles east of Birmingham — the
military this week said it's about one-third of the way into a $310
million program to level a gigantic furnace that cost $2.4 billion to
build and operate.
Tim Garrett, the government site project
manager, said officials considered doing something else with the
incinerator, but the facility was too specialized to convert for another
use. Also, the law originally allowing chemical incineration required
demolition once the work was done.
So teams are using large
machines to knock holes in thick concrete walls and rip steel beams off
the building's skeleton, which was previously decontaminated to guard
against any lingering nerve agents or mustard gas. Metal pieces are
being recycled, and the rest will be hauled to an ordinary landfill.
"It's the end of an era," said Garrett, a civilian.
The
military said the incineration program cost $11.5 billion in all, with
the cost of tearing down the four facilities built in from the start.
A
$2.8 billion incinerator is being demolished in Umatilla, Ore., the
Pentagon said, and work will begin soon to tear down a $3.7 billion
incinerator at Tooele, Utah. Workers already have finished demolishing
the $2.2 billion Pine Bluff Chemical Demilitarization Facility in
Arkansas, the military said. The site is being cleaned up and will close
officially
While opponents of the incinerators predicted dire
consequences and the possibility of floating clouds of nerve gas in the
event of an accident, the CDC said no nearby residents were exposed to
or harmed by chemical agents.
In east Alabama, before
incineration work began in 2003, the military and emergency management
workers spent millions of dollars distributing emergency kits to
households, erecting warning sirens and reinforcing schools with
ventilation systems to keep chemical weapons at bay during any
accidents.
But Garrett said nothing worse than normal workplace
injuries occurred by the time the last chemical weapons were burned in
2011.
"This place has the safety record of a library or a public school," he said.
More
than 660,000 artillery shells, small rockets and land mines were stored
in dirt-covered bunkers at the Anniston depot beginning in 1963 during
the height of the Cold War. The prospect of a major accident was
frightening because more than 360,000 people lived in the surrounding
four counties by the time the incineration ended.
Crates of
munitions were loaded into special containers and trucked from the
bunkers to the incinerator, where machines dismantled the weapons and
burned the chemicals.
With the incineration complete, employment
at the incinerator has dropped from around 1,000 workers at the apex of
the project to around 220 today, Garrett said. It will drop to a
skeleton crew once all the work is done by spring; the site is supposed
to be closed completely by then.
"It's been a career for us. A
good career," said Mike Abrams, who has been working on the Anniston
incinerator project in community outreach and public affairs since it
began.
Chemical weapons are outlawed by international treaty, and
their destruction is a global concern. International efforts are
underway to destroy Syria's stockpile by next year. This week, Albania
rejected a U.S. request to host the destruction of Syria's arsenal.
Multiple
domestic sites have destroyed chemical weapons, and the Army says it
has destroyed 90 percent of the U.S. stockpile. Plants being built in
Colorado and Kentucky will destroy most of the remaining U.S. cache with
a chemical process to make it harmless. Facilities previously finished
destroying weapons and were idled in Maryland, Indiana and Johnston
Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean.
Excerpt:
By Kristin Jones, I-News at Rocky Mountain PBS - • Updated: October 29, 2013
PUEBLO - On the high plains at this city's eastern edge, fields of concrete bunkers arrayed like a vast cemetery hold most of the remaining stockpile of the nation's chemical weapons. The earth-covered "igloos" with their reinforced concrete headwalls contain 2,611 tons of mustard agent in mortar rounds and artillery shells.
Slated for destruction since at least 1985, the munitions are old, leaky and expensive to protect.
The process of dismantling them is 29 years behind schedule and $33.8 billion over budget, according to Defense Department documents and historians.
In the latest Defense Department projection, the remaining 10 percent of the stockpile won't be destroyed until 2023, at a total cost of $35.5 billion.
Excerpt:
RICHMOND, KY (WAVE) - The military is storing deadly sarin and VX nerve
gas about 100 miles from Louisville and destroying it is an enormous
challenge for the US Department of Defense.
"This is the last of
the chemical weapons destruction in the United States," said Jeff
Brubaker, project manager for $2 billion, 340,000 square foot chemical
weapon destruction plant at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond.
NBC12.com - Richmond, VA News
Construction is almost three quarters finished but the plant still six
or seven years from being fully operational and starting the destruction
process of the 523 tons of sarin, vx and mustard gas stored at the
depot.
The toxic agents in Kentucky are sitting on more than 100,000 rockets
and artillery projectiles. Once the plant is up and running, estimated
at 2020, the chemical weapon warheads will be cut away from the rockets,
using what's known, quite simply, as a rocket cutter.
In
the latest Defense Department projection, the remaining 10 percent of
the stockpile won't be destroyed until 2023, at a total cost of $35.5
billion.
Read more at http://gazette.com/decades-behind-schedule-dismantling-chemical-weapons-stockpile-no-easy-task-at-pueblo-site/article/1508456#ORtrJa7cj73Pzewv.99
PUEBLO
- On the high plains at this city's eastern edge, fields of concrete
bunkers arrayed like a vast cemetery hold most of the remaining
stockpile of the nation's chemical weapons. The earth-covered "igloos"
with their reinforced concrete headwalls contain 2,611 tons of mustard
agent in mortar rounds and artillery shells.
Slated for destruction since at least 1985, the munitions are old, leaky and expensive to protect.
The process of dismantling them is 29 years behind schedule and $33.8
billion over budget, according to Defense Department documents and
historians.
Read more at
http://gazette.com/decades-behind-schedule-dismantling-chemical-weapons-stockpile-no-easy-task-at-pueblo-site/article/1508456#ORtrJa7cj73Pzewv.99
PUEBLO
- On the high plains at this city's eastern edge, fields of concrete
bunkers arrayed like a vast cemetery hold most of the remaining
stockpile of the nation's chemical weapons. The earth-covered "igloos"
with their reinforced concrete headwalls contain 2,611 tons of mustard
agent in mortar rounds and artillery shells.
Slated for destruction since at least 1985, the munitions are old, leaky and expensive to protect.
The process of dismantling them is 29 years behind schedule and $33.8
billion over budget, according to Defense Department documents and
historians.
Read more at
http://gazette.com/decades-behind-schedule-dismantling-chemical-weapons-stockpile-no-easy-task-at-pueblo-site/article/1508456#ORtrJa7cj73Pzewv.9
PUEBLO
- On the high plains at this city's eastern edge, fields of concrete
bunkers arrayed like a vast cemetery hold most of the remaining
stockpile of the nation's chemical weapons. The earth-covered "igloos"
with their reinforced concrete headwalls contain 2,611 tons of mustard
agent in mortar rounds and artillery shells.
Slated for destruction since at least 1985, the munitions are old, leaky and expensive to protect.
The process of dismantling them is 29 years behind schedule and $33.8
billion over budget, according to Defense Department documents and
historians.
Read more at
http://gazette.com/decades-behind-schedule-dismantling-chemical-weapons-stockpile-no-easy-task-at-pueblo-site/article/1508456#ORtrJa7cj73Pzewv.99
