Weapons at Kentucky depot to be neutralized - not burned

This story was published Fri, Nov 22, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON -- The aging weapons of mass destruction stored at the Army depot in Blue Grass, Ky., likely will not be destroyed in a furnace but by an alternative technology.

A recommendation to neutralize the chemical munitions in Kentucky was made this week by Under Secretary of Defense Pete Aldridge Jr.

Aldridge's recommendation shows a recent trend of choosing neutralization over incineration for destroying the nation's 24,000 tons of chemical warfare agents.

Kentucky is the last of the nation's nine depot sites to choose a method of destruction.

Four sites -- Umatilla, Anniston, Ala., Tooele, Utah, and Johnston Atoll -- previously decided to burn the deadly chemical munitions in incinerators.

More recently, neutralization was picked as the preferred destruction method for storage sites in Pueblo, Colo., Newport, Ind. and Aberdeen, Md.

The final decision on the Kentucky site is due in early 2003 and depends, in part, on an environmental impact study.

But anti-incineration proponents were bolstered by this week's news.

"The No. 1 issue we're concerned about is that with burning you can't control the agent," said Craig Williams, director of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group. "We believe neutralization provides more ability to control that agent."

If approved, neutralization, followed by a process of supercritical water oxidation for secondary waste, would be the method of disposal at Blue Grass.

Williams contends incineration facilities, such as the one at Umatilla, 30 miles south of the Tri-Cities, pose a greater public risk.

"The basic design of the incinerators have not performed as anticipated," Williams said, noting none of the nation's incinerators currently is destroying munitions because technical problems have plagued the incinerators at Umatilla and Alabama and a worker was exposed to the deadly chemical sarin at the Utah plant this summer.

"This coupling of complex technology has created problems and risks that were unanticipated," Williams said.

Anti-incineration groups have filed suit in Oregon and Alabama in an effort to stop the burns.

Twenty-five percent of the nation's weapons of mass destruction have already been successfully destroyed by incineration at Johnston Atoll and Tooele, Utah, said Greg Mahall, a Washington, D.C., spokesman for Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization.

Each stockpile has its own lethal mix of munitions. But the stockpile at Kentucky resembles the one at Umatilla.

They each have about 12 percent of the nation's stockpile.

 

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