Facility closing on goal
A third of chemical agent destroyed
The East Oregonian
Workers at the Umatilla Chemical Depot and Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility announced Tuesday workers had safely transported and destroyed a third of the chemical agent tonnage originally stored in the depot's chemical weapons stockpile.
This also means 86 percent of the total number of munitions in the Umatilla stockpile has been destroyed, the depot said. The depot reached the milestone last week.
"This is a community milestone as well as a credit to our workers," said Mike Strong, UMCDF Army site project manager. "It took years of effort and partnership to safely build, test and operate the plant to get us to this point."
The UMCDF is currently processing 155 mm diameter VX artillery projectiles.
Overall, the UMCDF is a little more than halfway through the VX nerve agent disposal campaign, UMCDF said. Workers have destroyed about 237 tons of VX agent contained in 14,519 rockets and warheads, 156 aircraft spray tanks, and more than 20,000 155 mm projectiles.
The remaining VX agent is contained in 8-inch diameter artillery projectiles and land mines.
The last of 1,014 tons of GB (sarin) nerve agent were destroyed July 8, 2007. The completed Umatilla GB campaign included about 155,500 chemical munitions including 91,442 rockets and warheads, more than 2,400 bombs and more than 51,000 artillery projectiles.
Destruction at the depot is part of the United States' agreement with the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) treaty, which measures chemical weapons disposal in terms of agent tonnage destroyed rather than number of munitions.
About 60 percent of the entire Umatilla stockpile tonnage is mustard blister agent in large bulk containers or "ton containers," which have not yet been destroyed.
When all VX is gone, only mustard blister agent will remain on the depot. At the current rate of processing, the last of the VX munitions will be destroyed by early 2009. Then, after several months to prepare the plant for processing mustard ton containers, the final campaign to destroy mustard agent is planned to begin before the end of 2009.
"Safely handling and moving each munition is essential," said Lt. Col. Bob Stein, depot commander. "We must remain vigilant until we finish moving and destroying the last chemical weapon in our stockpile." |
