Defense Environment Alert

an exclusive biweekly report on defense policies for cleanup, compliance and pollution prevention

Vol. 17, No. 11

May 26, 2009

DOD PLEDGES NOT TO SHIP CHEMICAL WEAPONS WASTE OFF-SITE

The Defense Department is pledging to treat waste produced by chemical agent destruction at stockpile sites on-site, rather than at off-site facilities, in a new report on accelerating destruction of U.S. chemical weapons. The decision marks a significant victory for activists long opposed to off-site shipment. However, the promise is made on condition that unforeseen "technical difficulties" do not arise which would prevent the military from implementing its planned methods of waste disposal.

A prominent activist source who has campaigned strongly against off-site disposal of the waste product hails the report as the most positive indication yet that the federal government will heed environmentalists' demands not to repeat off-site shipments. A coalition of activists unsuccessfully sued the Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) in May 2007 over its shipments of neutralized chemical weapons, or "hydrolysate," from Newport, IN, to Port Arthur, TX. Despite their defeat in federal court last September over the Newport shipments, members of the coalition have until now threatened a protracted fight over any future shipments.

The activist says DOD's report lifts the threat of off-site shipment and with it the threat of further litigation for the foreseeable future. "This is the most definitive articulation yet of a decision on that matter. It is very welcome news," the source says.

DOD's semi-annual report to Congress on the status of the chemical demilitarization program, released to lawmakers May 12, responds to a congressional mandate that the department review the program to consider ways to speed up chemical weapons destruction. Lawmakers led by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pushed for the study to examine how DOD might meet its congressionally-imposed deadline of 2017 to destroy the stockpile. The United States is also subject to a 2012 deadline under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the treaty governing destruction of chemical weapons worldwide, but has conceded it will not meet that marker. The DOD report is available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2 for details.

The report finds that "there are no realistic options available to destroy the complete U.S. stockpile by the CWC deadline of April 2012." Further, "to achieve the congressional destruction mandate of 2017, only transportingportions of the stockpile to currently operating destruction facilities showed any reasonable probability of success,and this option is precluded by law." Activists also have strenuously opposed transporting chemical weapons acrossstate lines for disposal.

DOD is prohibited by federal law from moving chemical agent across state lines. The department has, however,shipped hydrolysate from the neutralization process to incinerators in other states, as in the Newport case.

The department is instead proposing to commit additional resources to complete weapons destruction at those sites using incineration to dispose of their stockpiles, under the CMA's management, by 2012. The remaining two sites, which use neutralization to dispose of their chemical agent, at Pueblo, CO and Blue Grass, KY, will complete destruction in 2017 and 2021, respectively, bringing the schedule forward by three years for Pueblo and two years for Blue Grass, the report indicates. Destruction at the two neutralization sites is managed by the DOD Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program.

"On-site destruction of hydrolysate at Pueblo and Blue Grass will continue, unless technical difficulties arise," the report says.

Speaking to reporters May 14, Jean Reed, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense and chemical demilitarization, says the plan outlined gets DOD "as close to 2017 as practicable." An increase of about $250 million in additional funding proposed in the president's budget for fiscal year 2010 should allow the military to accelerate the building schedule for disposal facilities and for round-the-clock operation of facilities, Reed said. However, a similar sum would have to be committed by the government for each following year of the program until destruction is complete for the proposed timetable to be met, he added.

In an effort to continue the acceleration, DOD officials have suggested increasing funding over the next several years. Officials with the ACWA program in late January briefed senior congressional staff, suggesting increases of upwards of $200 million annually for the fiscal years 2010 to 2015 budget for the two ACWA sites, for a total increase of $1.2 billion over that span, according to an informed source (Defense Environment Alert, April 28).

Reed did not further define "technical difficulties," although the activist source remains confident that the department will not take an expansive view of what constitutes such difficulties. The activist concedes that technical difficulties are "a nebulous thing to try to predict," but that following conversations with DOD officials, the source believes that such difficulties would have to be sufficiently serious to stop the disposal of secondary waste altogether.

"Throughput" difficulties related to the volume of material being processed would not qualify as serious enough to warrant considering off-site treatment of hydrolysate, the source says. The source adds that maintaining constant funding until destruction is complete is "critical" to the success of the program.

Speaking with Reed May 14, Carmen Spencer, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for elimination of chemical weapons, confirmed that DOD is also looking to so-called explosive destruction technology (EDT) to deal with problem chemical munitions that cannot be disassembled for incineration or neutralization at Anniston, AL, Tooele, UT. EDT could potentially be used at Pueblo and Blue Grass should similar problems arise there, Spencer said.

EDT employs a blast-proof room to detonate problem munitions, such as the mustard agent weapons currently causing difficulties at Anniston and Tooele. The Tooele site has yet to obtain the necessary permits for EDT from state regulators, Spencer said.

The activist source says that the activist community is divided on the merits of EDT, which like incineration, but unlike neutralization, produces exhaust gases. The source says that EPA Region IV, advising state regulators on destruction at Anniston, is requiring that EDT conform to the same Clean Air Act permit requirements that apply to incineration.

Activists are split, the source explains, over the potential for harmful emissions to result from EDT. Also, they are divided on whether EDT is preferable to neutralization -- advocated by many activists - as EDT requires a longer and more complex permitting process than neutralization. Some activists have touted EDT as a potential alternative to incineration. For instance, G.A.S.P., a group opposed to chemical weapons incineration at Umatilla, OR, is challenging state regulators' decision that under Oregon law incineration is the "best available technology" for weapons disposal. The group says that the Army's choice to use EDT to dispose of problem mustard agent at Anniston and Tooele proves that incineration is not necessarily the best option available (Defense Environment Alert, April 28).