Tooele bestows 'bragging rights'

The United States will have some braggin' rights toward the end of this month when it makes a formal report to the International Chemical Demilitarization Conference.

During the session, scheduled for May 22-24 at The Hague, Netherlands, American officials will report that they have far exceeded the country's requirement to destroy 1 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile by April 29. The requirement is part of the Chemical Weapons Convention, ratified in 1997.

Thanks to the work of the Army's chemical weapons incinerator in Tooele County and a sister facility on Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, the country has eliminated a whopping 15 percent of the vast stockpile.

And the United states did it safely, said James Bacon, the Army's program manager for chemical demilitarization.

"We clearly are setting an international standard for chemical weapons disposal," Bacon said in a written statement. "This is an historic achievement that countless Americans have taken part in and all Americans can be proud of."

Disposal began at Johnston Island in 1990. The plant has destroyed more than 1,800 tons of chemical agent and more than 380,000 munitions. It is slated to begin closing by January 2001.

The first mainland U.S. chemical weapons destruction plant, located near Stockton, Tooele County, began burning sarin nerve agent in August 1996. Since then, the Army has destroyed more than 6,000 tons of chemical agent.

Jon Pettebone, spokesman for Deseret Chemical Depot (which houses the stockpile and the incinerator), told the Deseret News that as of April 30, the plant "has destroyed 4,408 tons, and that is 32.3 percent of the original tonnage."

The stockpile contains GB (sarin) and VX nerve agent, as well as deadly mustard blister agent. The incinerator has burned only sarin so far.

Material destroyed in Tooele County amounts to 455,989 rounds of 105 mm projectiles, 4,529 ton containers, 4,463 MC-1 (750-pound) bombs and 25,190 M-55 rockets, Pettebone said. The plant has eliminated all of its MC-1 bombs.

Before destruction began, the 13,616 tons of chemical agent stored at the base was 42.3 percent of the country's total.

Other disposal facilities are planned for Anniston, Ala.; Umatilla, Ore.; Pine Bluff, Ark.; Blue Grass, Ky.; Edgewood, Md.; Newport, Ind., and Pueblo, Colo. Some of these will use chemical methods, rather than incineration, to destroy chemical weapons.

The country's entire chemical arms stockpile is to be destroyed by April 2007, said Bacon. Officials have said they intend to destroy Tooele's lethal chemicals by the end of 2004.

About 135 countries have either ratified the treaty or said they agree to it. It went into force on April 29, 1997.

Under the treaty, the next milestone is April 29, 2002, the fifth anniversary of the treaty's going into effect.

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You can reach Joe Bauman by e-mail at bau@desnews.com