Deseret News
Tuesday, January 23, 1996

SECRET'S OFFICIALLY OUT: TAD STORES 13,616 TONS OF DEADLY CHEMICALS

Stockpile of agents makes up 44.5% of U.S. total, not 42.3%.
__________________________________________________________

By Lee Davidson, Washington Correspondent

The Pentagon officially ended a secret Monday that wasn't really much of a secret anyway: namely, how much nerve and mustard agent it stores at Tooele Army Depot and sister bases nation-wide.

The Pentagon said Tooele stores 13,616 tons of deadly chemical agents in 1.1 million individual weapons and containers. A new incineration plant there in Rush Valley is scheduled to begin large-scale destruction of those arms this year.

The Army for years had said it stores 42.3 percent of its chemical arms by weight at Tooele - but said the exact amount by tonnage was classified to protect national security.

Tooele now stores 44.5 percent of the stockpile, however. That's not because the number of arms there has increased but because the overall number of arms nationally has decreased because of recent incineration at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific, said Suzanne Fournier, spokeswoman for the proj-ect manager for chemical demil-i-tar-i-zation.

However in May last year before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Defense Secretary Harold P. Smith testified Tooele had "about" 16,920 tons of nerve and mustard gas agent in a variety of artillery shells, missiles, land mines, spray tanks and bulk containers - which essentially ended the secret then.

Outside groups also had previously estimated that Tooele had about that much in storage.

Also last year, Smith had testified that the United States had more than 40,000 tons total of chemical arms nationwide.

On Monday, however, the Pentagon said its "stockpile" was only 30,599.55 tons of single-component or "unitary" chemical weapons that are deadly by themselves and 680 tons of "binary" weapons that combine two non-lethal chemicals to form poisonous gas.

However, that number did not include 13,600 tons used for testing or that were captured from other countries.

Also, another 10,000 tons are kept at Dugway Proving Ground and at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., to test chemical arms defenses such as protective clothing and gas masks.

Congress has ordered all of the nation's unitary chemical arms stockpile to be destroyed - and the Pentagon has said all but a ton or so of unitary weapons needed for continued testing will be.

In 1993, the Clinton administration and the Pentagon also renounced the use of all chemical weapons - even if the United States is attacked with them by others. It said the United States would retaliate with overwhelming use of other types of arms instead.

Maj. Gen. Edward Friel told a press conference Monday that none of the chemical weapons the country made since World War II were used in combat but said they helped deter the use of chemicals against the United States.

Maj. Gen. Robert Orton, who heads the Army's chemical weapons destruction project, also told the press conference that ending official secrecy about how many chemical arms are at eight sites nationwide should help speed obtaining environmental clearances needed to incinerate the weapons where they are stored.

"It also may enhance our credibility by confirming that we are not holding back from regulators and the public," Orton said. "It eliminates a serious irritant."

The Army has faced increasing challenges from communities near planned destruction facilities that its incineration process is unsafe. Pilot plants at Tooele and at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific had several accidents that released nerve agent to the atmosphere.

The Army is studying using chemicals to neutralize the arms at some sites instead of destroying them by incineration.

The amount of arms stored at sites nationwide includes:

- At Tooele: about 5,695 tons of agent HD, 6,045 tons of sarin (or nerve agent GB - the same chemical used in a Tokyo subway terrorist attack last year) and 1,356 tons of VX (the deadliest known nerve agent). The depot also has about 34 tons of the binary agents.

- At Anniston Army Depot, Ala., 2,253 tons in 661,000 weapons.

- At Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., 1,624 tons in bulk containers.

- At Blue Grass Army Depot, Ky., 523 tons in 101,000 weapons.

- At Newport Army Ammunition Plant, Ind., 1,269 tons of the nerve agent VX in bulk containers.

- At Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ark., 3,849 tons in 123,000 weapons and bulk containers.

- At Pueblo Army Depot Activity, Colo., 2,611 tons in 780,000 weapons.

- At Umatilla Depot Activity at Hermiston, Ore., 3,717 tons in 220,000 weapons and containers.

- At Johnston Atoll in the Pacific, 1,134 tons of nerve and mustard agents in 292,000 weapons.

*****
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Chemical Weapons

U.S. Storage Sites