Safely Destroying Americas Chemical Weapons

The U.S. Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program was established with the goal of destroying the nation's stockpile of lethal unitary chemical weapons. Since 1990 the U.S. Army has been testing a baseline incineration technology on Johnston Island in the southern Pacific Ocean. Under the planned disposal program, this baseline technology will be imported in the mid to late 1990s to continental United States disposal facilities; construction will include eight stockpile storage sites. In early 1992 the Committee on Alternative Chemical Demilitarization Technologies was formed by the National Research Council to investigate potential alternatives to the baseline technology. This book, the result of its investigation, addresses the use of alternative destruction technologies to replace, partly or wholly, or to be used in addition to the baseline technology. The book considers principal technologies that might be applied to the disposal program, strategies that might be used to manage the stockpile, and combinations of technologies that might be employed.

This book, first published in 1997, examines the forced merger between national security interests and environmental policy makers arising from the Chemical Weapons Convention and its requirement to safely dismantle the world’s chemical weapons stockpiles. The two groups had to find a way to intersect and work together, and this book analyses the problems and politics involved.

Sine 1985, the Army has spent $3.2 billion on its programs for destroying the U.S. stockpile of chemical munitions and planning for the disposal of nonstockpile chemical warfare materiel. The Army estimates that $24.4 billion more will be needed to complete these programs. This report describes the DoD's programs for destroying the U.S. stockpile of chemical munitions and planning for the disposal of nonstockpile chemical warfare materiel. Provides an overall assessment of the programs' cost and schedule, alternatives for improving program effectiveness and efficiency, and actions the Army has and is taking to improve the programs. Charts and tables.

The Army's ability to meet public and congressional demands to destroy expeditiously all of the U.S. declared chemical weapons would be enhanced by the selection and acquisition of appropriate explosive destruction technologies (EDTs) to augment the main technologies to be used to destroy the chemical weapons currently at the Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD) in Kentucky and the Pueblo Chemical Depot (PCD) in Colorado. The Army is considering four EDTs for the destruction of chemical weapons: three from private sector vendors, and a fourth, Army-developed explosive destruction system (EDS). This book updates earlier evaluations of these technologies, as well as any other viable detonation technologies, based on several considerations including process maturity, process efficacy, process throughput, process safety, public and regulatory acceptability, and secondary waste issues, among others. It also provides detailed information on each of the requirements at BGAD and PCD and rates each of the existing suitable EDTs plus the Army's EDS with respect to how well it satisfies these requirements.