Chemical Weapons

As of mid-2017 there were two sites in America still storing chemical weapons. The Pueblo Chemical Depot was expected to complete the destruction by 2019, while the Blue Grass Army Depot was scheduled to start its stockpile’s destruction in 2020. The United States began its own destruction process unilaterally in 1990, seven years before the CWC’s entry into force, and announced late in 2011 that it had completed 90% destruction of its original 31,500 US tons (28,577 MTs) of stockpiled chemical weapons at seven of its nine declared stockpile sites. The US missed the Chemical Weapons Convention’s 29 April 2012 deadline, and at that time it appeared the US would need another decade or more to complete the task.

Further to a decision by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Conference at its Sixteenth Session (C-16/DEC.11), a national paper by the United States of America on the progress made on the completion of the destruction of its chemical weapons, including information on measures to accelerate such progress, as well as on appropriate measures in order to meet the planned completion date (EC-69/NAT.1, dated 15 June 2012), was considered and noted by the Council, along with comments on the issue.

The United States stockpile of unitary lethal chemical warfare munitions consists of various rockets, projectiles, mines, and bulk items containing blister agents (mustard H, HD, HT) and nerve agents (VX, GB). About 60% of this stockpile is in bulk storage containers; 40% is stored in munitions, many of which are now obsolete. The stockpile is stored at eight sites throughout the Continental US (Edgewood Chemical Activity, MD; Anniston Chemical Activity, AL; Blue Grass Chemical Activity, KY; Newport Chemical Depot, IN; Pine Bluff Chemical Activity, AR; Pueblo Chemical Depot, CO; Deseret Chemical Activity, UT; and Umatilla Chemical Depot, OR) and at one site outside of the Continental US on Johnston Atoll.

In 1985, the Congress passed Public Law 99-145 directing the Army to destroy the US stockpile of obsolete chemical agents and munitions. Recognizing that the stockpile program did not include all chemical warfare materiel requiring disposal, the Congress directed the Army in 1992 to plan for the disposal of materiel not included in the stockpile. This materiel, some of which dates back as far as World War I, consists of binary chemical weapons, miscellaneous chemical warfare materiel, recovered chemical weapons, former production facilities, and buried chemical warfare materiel. In 1992, the Army established theNonstockpile Chemical Materiel Program to dispose of the materiel.

In 1993, the United States signed the UN-sponsored Chemical Weapons Convention. In October 1996, the 65th nation ratified the convention making the treaty effective on April 29, 1997. Through ratification, the United States agreed to dispose of its unitary chemical weapons stockpile, binary chemical weapons, recovered chemical weapons, and former chemical weapon production facilities by April 29, 2007, and miscellaneous chemical warfare materiel by April 29, 2002.

The United States has met and surpassed the 29 April 2000 disposal milestone of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). By this date, participating CWC nations must have destroyed one percent of their Category 1 chemical weapons (this amount includes stockpiled as well as certain other chemical weapons known as non-stockpile chemical materiel). The United States has destroyed over 15 percent of its Category 1 chemical weapons since the CWC entered into force, far surpassing the disposal milestone. The next CWC milestone was April 29, 2002, when nations must have destroyed 20 percent of their Category 1 chemical weapons.

The Non-Stockpile Project

While the stockpile project poses many challenges, the non-stockpile project faces its own set of complex issues. The term non-stockpile chemical materiel describes a wide variety of chemical warfare materiel that is not part of the unitary stockpile as declared in 1986. This materiel exists in a variety of physical configurations that range from chemical agent identification sets once used to teach soldiers how to identify chemical agents to large former weapons-production facilities.

This materiel is located on active or former military bases, and much of it is buried at small, geographically dispersed sites, as burial was once an accepted disposal practice. The logistical problems posed by locating burial sites, identifying what is buried there, and determining how to remove it safely are serious and far-ranging.

By the end of Fiscal Year 1999, materiel had been identified, or was believed to exist, at 99 locations in 38 states and U.S. territories, some of which had or have multiple burial sites. Approximately 229 known or suspected sites have been identified. At 33 of the 99 locations, hazardous materiel was removed, or no hazardous materiel was found.

Transportable treatment systems provide the flexibility to rapidly identify, treat and/or neutralize certain types of materiel. The Army prepared a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, issued in the fall of 1999, that examined the feasibility of deploying these systems across the country at locations where chemical warfare materiel must be treated.