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Burning Taxpayers
Army Chemical Weapons Incinerator Program

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"Our objective should be zero emissions, and if we can't achieve that, then we shut them [incinerators] down." Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) April 25, then chairman, Senate Defense Appropriations Committee during a hearing on the safety of the Army's chemical stockpile disposal program (April 25, 2001).

The Army continues to spend billions of dollars to destroy chemical weapons using incinerators while malfunctions, agent releases, schedule slippage and cost overruns continue to plague the program. Recently Pentagon documents now show that the program is not scheduled for completion until 2016, after having been projected for completion in 1994. The estimated costs have grown from $1.7 billion to $24 billion.

Green Scissors Proposal
Cut funding for incinerator process design services and equipment purchases for Pine Bluff (AR), Umatilla (OR) and Anniston, (AL) based on successful demonstration of alternative technologies as reported to Congress in December 2000. Cut funding for operations, maintenance and procurement for incinerators and retrofit under incinerators under construction in Oregon, Alabama and Arkansas sites to non-incineration specific activities. Savings would be at least $348.6 million in fiscal year 2002.

Current Status
Under the Chemical Weapons Convention ratified by the Senate in 1997, the United States is obligated to destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons by 2007 with a one-time five-year extension allowed to 2012. The U.S. Army has eight sites around the country - two for bulk chemicals and six for chemical agent munitions - that store more than 24,000 tons of deadly agents such as mustard and nerve gas. In August 1996, the Army began operation of a $1.8 billion dollar incineration plant at Tooele, Utah. In December 1996, after continuous public pressure, the Army decided to use alternative technologies instead of incineration at the two bulk sites in Maryland and Indiana. The Pentagon's Alternative Chemical Weapons Assessment Program, funded in the fiscal year 1997 Defense Appropriations bill, has demonstrated four alternative technologies as proven substitutes for incineration.

The chemical weapons disposal program is already predicted to be 22 years behind schedule. It cannot meet the International Treaty deadline of 2007, or the next extension date of 2012 using the incineration technology. Legal action against incineration continues in Utah, Alabama, Oregon and Arkansas, and serious technical problems plague the existing incinerator in Utah, including a four-month shut down after chemical agent GB (SARIN) escaped its smokestack in May 2000.

Project Hurts Taxpayers

The cost of the program has skyrocketed. The Army recently admitted to a life cycle cost of $24 billion. The internal Army documents cite the inability of incineration to maintain schedule the primary reason for cost overruns.

Project Hurts the Environment

Incineration releases toxic by-products, including dioxins, furans, PCBs, mercury, lead and chemical agents that threaten nearby communities. Documents show for every pound of chemical agent burned at the Utah incinerator, 15 pounds of hazardous waste have to be shipped off-site for land filling or deep-well injection.

Chronic low-level releases of chemical warfare agents pose health risks, as reflected in recent reports from scientists studying these effects on Gulf War veterans. Reports from Congress investigating Gulf War illnesses confirm the health risk of low-level exposure to agents currently being burned at the Army incinerators. New Toxicity standards to be promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency show that the Army has seriously underestimated the impact of low-level agent exposure.

Contacts

• Craig Williams, Chemical Weapons Working Group, (859) 986-7565.