By Bill Robinson
The Army’s Chemical Weapons Alternative (ACWA) program may recommend that all of the 15,000 mustard agent weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot be destroyed in small-scale explosive detonation chambers rather than in the $2 billion chemical neutralization plant under construction at the depot south of Richmond.
The mustard rounds are a small fraction of the chemical munitions stored at the depot, said Kevin Flamm, ACWA program manager, but because of metal corrosion or problems with their bursters, or internal detonators, most of them probably cannot safely be put through the main plant’s mass-production type process.
The Defense Department will decide next month whether to move toward the detonation alternative, Flamm on Tuesday told the Chemical Destruction Citizen Advisory Board (CDCAB), through which ACWA communicates with the local community.
Even if Pentagon wants to destroy the mustard rounds by detonation, the process must meet state and federal safety and environmental standards, Flamm said. The local community’s opinion also will be taken into account, he said.
If a mustard round becomes unstable inside the large-scale plant, it would have to be retrieved manually by workers in a high-hazard operation, he said. Based on the experience of other depots, about 60 percent of the mustard rounds likely are problematic, Flamm said.
Because mustard rounds would be destroyed separately, he said, the process could be started before completion of the large-scale plant and reduce the time that the United States will go beyond the international deadline for complete destruction of chemical weapons.
Detonation previously was proposed only for “problem” mustard munitions, said Craig Williams, CDCAB co-chair. A subgroup of CDCAB, of which Williams is a part, was briefed on possible expansion of the detonation alternative late in November, on the same day the State Department was briefed, he said.
Although the subgroup agreed that workers in the large-scale plant should not be exposed to unnecessary risks and would like to see weapons destruction accelerated, Williams said the group feared the detonation method could be further expanded.
While the subgroup’s draft proposal did not flatly object to detonation of all mustard rounds, it declared its opposition to destroying any nerve agent by that method. The entire CDCAB will make its views known to Flamm, who must make a recommendation to the Defense Department on Tuesday. A Pentagon panel will make a decision in January.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
