Published: July 04, 2007

Army official responds to allegations

By Ronica Shannon
Register News Writer

Recent anonymous negative claims about the Chemical Materials Agency's (CMA) inventory system was combated Tuesday by a representative of the CMA, which is a department of the U.S. Army.

An anonymous letter recently sent to several people in the realm of military and politics is relaying false information, said Gregory Mahall, CMA public information officer.

The letter claimed that the Blue Grass Army Depot's Chemical Activity department, in charge of overseeing the chemical weapons, has no correct inventory records of the weapons stored in the depot’s 45 "igloos."

It went further to say that "the information in the (Chemical Activity) inventory system was so distorted and erroneous that it has corrupted the entire CMA chemical agent inventory system to the point it has been shut down."

Mahall said the allegations are absolutely not true.

The anonymous person continued to write: "At this time, no one can say with any certainty what is in storage at Blue Grass Army Depot Chemical Activity, how much is there, or where it is located."

The CMA has records of its own about the weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot and so far, they have matched what the inventory revealed, he said.

The problem is that some of the weapons are not in the exact same spot as during the previous inventory/inspection.

"There are some things (in the letter) that appear to be credible allegations," Mahall said.

He admits that some of the weapons are no longer in their previous location, but only because work had been done on the wooden pallets that hold the weapons, which required that they be moved around the igloo.

"The records were not properly updated to document that move, but it's not like (the weapon) moved across town," he said. "We've had issues with water seeping into the igloos and into the wooden pallets and we're been re-warehousing. We can't just put those weapons out of storage, we have to move them around the igloo."

The pallets had become weathered and weak over time, becoming water logged. This increased the chances of a weapon becoming unstable and possibly falling over.

In 2005, chemical workers and ammunition surveillance experts conducted a special study to determine the condition of the wooden pallets holding the chemical munitions.

The weapons stored in the igloos had been resting on the same wooden pallets for about 40 years.

Approximately 13 rockets are stored on one pallet. Ultimately, 227 pallets in 20 igloos had to be replaced. The operation was completed in two phases.

The fact that some of the rockets were moved in the process is not something that calls for alarm, he said.

"We know what's there. The inventory is not distorted or corrupted," Mahall said. "The recent annual inventory was done in May and it verified the number we had."

There are nearly 100,000 chemical weapons being stored at the depot.

"One thing we do is we also grid the stockpile in storage," he said. "We do this to know what numbers are where, and that's what the inventory shows."

The storage igloos are subject to two inventories each year, one being done by Chemical Activity personnel and the other is done by an outside source from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The OPCW annual inventory is a very meticulous, thorough process. The Blue Grass Chemical Activity received a 100 percent accountability on its most recent inventory completed in May.

Ronica Shannon can be reached at rshannon@richmondregister.com or 623-1669, Ext. 234.