Global Courant
The United States faces a September 30, 2023 deadline to destroy the country’s remaining chemical weapons under the International Chemical Weapons Convention. U.S. workers at Kentucky’s Blue Grass Army Depot have nearly destroyed the last of the country’s declared chemical weapons. Kentucky’s Blue Grass Army Depot has housed mustard agent and the VX and sarin nerve agents since the 1940s
A sprawling military installation in the midst of the rolling green hills of eastern Kentucky is about to reach a milestone in the history of warfare dating back to World War I.
Blue Grass Army Depot workers are about to destroy missiles filled with GB nerve agent, the last of the chemical weapons declared by the United States, and complete a decades-long campaign to eliminate a stockpile that totaled more than 30,000 by the end of the Cold War. tons.
The destruction of the weapons marks a major turning point for Richmond, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado, where an army depot destroyed the last of its chemical assets last month. It is also a defining moment for arms control efforts worldwide.
The US faces a Sept. 30 deadline to eliminate its remaining chemical weapons under the International Chemical Weapons Convention, which came into effect in 1997 and involved 193 countries. The ammunition being destroyed in Kentucky is the last of 51,000 M55 missiles carrying GB nerve gas – a deadly poison also known as sarin – that have been stored at the depot since the 1940s.
By destroying the munitions, the US is officially underscoring that these types of weapons are no longer acceptable on the battlefield and sending a signal to the handful of countries that have not joined the agreement, military experts say.
“One thing we’re really proud of is how we’re finishing the mission. We’re finishing it for good for the United States of America,” said Kim Jackson, manager of the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant.
KENTUCKY CHEMICAL WEAPONS DISPOSAL FACILITY NEAR COMPLETE OF YEARS LONG MISSION
Chemical weapons were first used in modern warfare in World War I, where it is estimated that at least 100,000 people were killed. Despite its use being subsequently banned by the Geneva Convention, countries continued to build up arms until the treaty called for its destruction.
In southern Colorado, workers at the Army Pueblo Chemical Depot began destroying the weapons in 2016 and on June 22 completed their mission to neutralize an entire stockpile of about 2,600 tons of mustard blowing agent. The projectiles and mortars made up about 8.5% of the country’s original chemical weapons stockpile of 30,610 tons of agent.
Nearly 800,000 mustard chemical munitions have been stored since the 1950s in row after row of heavily guarded concrete and earth bunkers poking the landscape near a large tract of farmland east of Pueblo.
Technicians work to destroy the United States’ chemical weapons stockpile at the U.S. Army’s Pueblo Chemical Depot on June 8, 2023 in Pueblo, Colorado. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The destruction of the guns addresses a concern that civic leaders in Colorado and Kentucky admit have always been on the back of their mind.
“Those (weapons) that were there posed no threat,” Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar said. But, he added, “you’ve always wondered what could happen to them.”
In the 1980s, the community around the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky rebelled against the Army’s initial plan to burn the plant’s 520 tons of chemical weapons, sparking a decades-long battle over how they would be disposed of. They were able to shut down the planned incinerator and then, with the help of lawmakers, push the military to propose alternative methods of incinerating the weapons.
Craig Williams, who became the leading voice of the community’s opposition and later became a partner of political leaders and the military, said residents were concerned about possible toxic pollution from burning the deadly chemicals.
Williams noted that the Army had eliminated most of its existing stockpile by burning weapons in other, more remote locations such as the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean or at a chemical depot in the middle of the Utah desert. But the Kentucky property borders Richmond and is only a few dozen miles from Lexington, the state’s second-largest city.
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“We had a high school with over 600 kids a mile from the (planned) smokestack,” Williams said.
The Kentucky storage facility has contained mustard gas and the VX and sarin nerve agents, largely in rockets and other projectiles, since the 1940s. The state’s disposal facility was completed in 2015 and began destroying weapons in 2019. It uses a process called neutralization to dilute the deadly substances so they can be safely removed.
However, the project has been a boon to both communities, and faced with the eventual loss of thousands of workers, both are throwing the pool of highly skilled workers as an asset to companies seeking to locate in their regions.
Workers at the Pueblo site used heavy machinery to carefully — and slowly — load obsolete weapons onto conveyor systems that led to secure rooms where remote-controlled robots did the dirty and dangerous work of eliminating the poisonous mustard agent, which was designed to blister blisters. skin and cause inflammation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.
Robotic equipment removed the fuses and bursters from the weapons before neutralizing the mustard agent with hot water and mixing it with a caustic solution to prevent the reaction from reversing. The byproduct was further broken down in large tanks swimming with microbes, and the mortars and projectiles were decontaminated at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and recycled as scrap.
Problematic ammunition that was leaky or overpacked was sent to an armored, stainless steel blast chamber to be destroyed at approximately 1100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The sites in Colorado and Kentucky were the last of many, including Utah and the Johnston Atoll, where the country’s chemical weapons had been stored and destroyed. Other locations included facilities in Alabama, Arkansas and Oregon.
Global Courant
Kingston Reif, an assistant US defense secretary for threat reduction and arms control, said the destruction of the last US chemical weapon “will close an important chapter in military history, but we are very much looking forward to closing it .”
Officials say the removal of the US stockpile is a big step forward for the Chemical Weapons Convention. Only three countries – Egypt, North Korea and South Sudan – have not signed the treaty. A fourth, Israel, has signed but not ratified the treaty.
Reif noted that concerns remain that some parties to the treaty, particularly Russia and Syria, possess undeclared stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Still, arms control advocates hope that this latest move by the US may prompt the remaining nations to join. But they also hope it can be used as a model for eliminating other types of weapons.
“It shows that countries really can ban a weapon of mass destruction,” said Paul F. Walker, vice president of the Arms Control Association and coordinator of the Chemical Weapons Convention Coalition. “If they want to do it, all it takes is the political will and a good verification system.”
Workers are nearly done eliminating the last of the US chemical weapons, ending a decades-long campaign to eliminate the stockpile
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