THE MORNING NEWS
LOCAL NEWS FOR NORTHWEST ARKANSAS

Arsenal May Get More Weapons
Last Updated Saturday, July 5, 2008 5:41 PM CDT in News

By Larry Fugate
Pine Bluff Commercial

PINE BLUFF - The Pine Bluff Arsenal has been so efficient at eliminating stockpiled chemical weapons that the facility is on a Department of Defense list for consideration to receive chemical weapons from other facilities, Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., told the Pine Bluff Commercial last week.

The "Pine Bluff Arsenal proved it is very capable of destroying these weapons," Pryor said, citing a June Chemical Demilitarization Program report.

The lawmaker emphasized during an interview that the report is classified as "tentative."

The last VX nerve-agent filled landmine stockpiled at the arsenal was destroyed June 20. Destruction of the 9,378 mines marked the end of the third of four disposal campaigns at the facility.

The final scheduled disposal campaign involves elimination of 1-ton containers of mustard agent, Mark Greer, site project manager for the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, said last month.

The "safety aspect" of such a move has not been addressed to the satisfaction of many individuals, including members of Congress, Pryor said.

Congress ordered the military to destroy all chemical weapons by the 2017 deadline imposed in a 1997 treaty banning the weapons. The U.S. has already acknowledged it can't meet a 2012 deadline established by the international Chemical Weapons Convention.

Destruction facilities are currently under construction at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado and Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

Options to accelerate "destruction of the remaining chemical weapons stockpile" include incentives to ensure destruction is completed by 2012 at all Army Chemical Materials Agency sites and transporting portions of the stockpile to operational facilities like Pine Bluff.

The Pentagon is conducting an assessment of the latter option, according to the report obtained by The Commercial.

The results of the review will be provided to Congress with the 2010 fiscal year budget request, lawmakers were told in the report.