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Army hits milestone in destruction of VX

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Army destroyed the last chemical weapon filled with deadly nerve agent at the Anniston Army Depot on Wednesday, a milestone the military said virtually eliminated a Cold War-era threat to the region.

The depot’s chemical weapons incinerator burned the final land mine loaded with VX nerve agent less than 5½ years after it began destroying a total of about 293,000 gallons of deadly VX and another nerve agent, sarin.

The last of the sarin was destroyed in 2006.

The munitions were stored for nearly five decades in dirt-covered bunkers on the sprawling installation. The depot is home to the nation’s only chemical weapons incinerator located in a populated area.

Thousands of projectiles, mortars and large containers filled with less-lethal mustard agent are the only remaining chemical weapons stored on the post, located in Calhoun County about 50 miles east of Birmingham.

While mustard agent can cause blistering and burns, it is far less dangerous than chemicals like VX and sarin that affect the nervous system.

“It’s a good Christmas gift for all of Calhoun County, good holiday cheer that we don’t have to worry about those chemical weapons anymore,” said Anniston Mayor Gene Robinson. “The mustard gas is totally different from the nerve gas, so the threat to the population of this county is over.”

An incineration opponent said destroying mustard-filled munitions was plenty risky.

“Mustard is the most complex of the agents to incinerate and provides the greatest long-term risk to the public health because of this fact,” said Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group.

“It, for example, is the only agent that is carcinogenic and that produces dioxins as part of its breakdown products due to combustion,” said Williams, of Berea, Ky.

A total of 361,802 munitions have been incinerated in Anniston since 2003 as part of the Army’s $34 billion program to destroy all its chemical weapons dating from the Cold War.

The military provided safety gear to many of the 35,000 people who live within nine miles of the incinerator before the work began at Anniston, but no major accidents have occurred.

“We have reached a truly remarkable milestone following more than five years of deliberate but careful operations,” said Tim Garrett, site manager at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

Opponents concede the destruction program has gone smoother than they expected, but they say the incinerator could still be spewing dangerous toxins into the air, a claim the military denies.

Nationally, more than half the U.S. stockpile of 31,500 tons of nerve agents and mustard gas has been burned or chemically neutralized at seven sites with no major accidents since the program started 18 years ago.

A spokesman for the incinerator, Mike Abrams, said the Anniston plant would be closed for maintenance and equipment changes for five to seven months before it begins incinerating mustard weapons. That destruction work is expected to take about three years, he said.

Robinson, who owns a Western Auto store besides serving as mayor, said he will be glad when all the chemical weapons are gone.

“It was quite a looming threat, and it’s past time that America should destroy those weapons,” he said. “In the world we shouldn’t be faced with those weapons ever again.”