News

ARSENAL SEES END OF ERA

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, January 6, 2005 10:35 AM CST

A small group stood in the rain at the Pine Bluff Arsenal on Wednesday morning, watching as two towers were toppled by dozers.

The structures were designed for use in former chemical production facilities.

Col. Tom Woloszyn, Arsenal commander, said that the casual observer may not have thought that seeing the towers fall was the most dramatic event in history, but the demolition project symbolizes the "end of an era."

Woloszyn recalled that the chemical weapons program began when he joined the Army.

"I never thought I'd be at the end of it," he said.

Even though weapons like the Bigeye Bomb never were never used in combat, Woloszyn said the facilities played a major role in history.

"It did its mission of bringing the Soviets to the bargaining table," he said.

With one dozer pulling a cable attached to the top of the tower and another pushing, it took about 15 minutes to pull them down one at a time.

Joe R. Daven, site manager of the Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Program, said the "scrubber towers" were part of a pollutant control abatement system attached to the former DF production facility.

Since work began, which is being done by The Shaw Group Inc. of Baton Rouge, La., more than 1,300 tons of metal have been recycled from the former facilities. Daven said recyclable material is taken to a recycling shop at Pine Bluff.

In accordance with a chemical weapons treaty, Daven said the Arsenal can dispose of most of the old equipment. However, any equipment that has OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) tags on it must remain on-site "until the treaty committee comes in and gives their approval."

Daven added that the Arsenal meticulously records -- on film and video -- each step of the demolition project, which is subject to review by OPCW.

The towers represented one of the last structures remaining at the former Integrated Binary Production Facilities complex, which once included 37 buildings and structures. The complex contained chemical production plants and three munition fill buildings.

The Arsenal began destruction of the complex in October 2003.

"It's hard to believe all the changes since I got here," Woloszyn said as he observed the nearly barren footprint of the former complex. "It's quite a change."

There is one building still standing, the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Fill and Close facility, which is being converted to dispose of the remaining DF and QL at the Arsenal.

The two chemicals stored at the Arsenal were part of the binary weapons program, which represented the final and most technologically advanced stage of the nation's chemical weapons program. These non-lethal chemicals were known as "precursors," each designed to mix with another chemical and become a lethal chemical agent by the time a munition reached its target. The chemicals could be stored separately, resulting in safer manufacturing, storage and transportation.

The fill and close facility's new mission will be to destroy the remaining chemicals stored at the Arsenal: About 56,000 canisters of DF (each about the size of a coffee can); six, 55-gallon drums of DF; and 291 drums of QL.

The chemicals will be neutralized by mixing them with warm water and then the contractor will take it to an out-of-state toxic storage disposal facility, Daven said. Conversion of the former fill and close facility is 75 percent complete.

"We're not looking to open the facility until the beginning of 2006," Daven said.

It will take about six months to neutralize and dispose of all the chemicals, with the facility operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he said.

Construction of the complex began in 1982, but was halted in 1990 after the United States and the former Soviet Union agreed to end chemical weapons production. Work at the facility never resumed.

In 1997, the Chemical Weapons Convention was ratified, with more than 160 nations vowing to eliminate most types of chemical warfare materiel and former production facilities by April 2007.

The M687 projectile, which mixed DF and isopropyl alcohol to form the nerve agent GB, was the only binary weapon ever to reach production. The Bigeye Bomb, designed to combine QL and sulphur to produce the nerve agent VX, never reached production. A small number of prototype bombs were made and destroyed but none were ever filled with QL. No MLRS warheads, which were designed to contain DF, were produced or filled either.

Two of the nation's seven facilities remain -- the Arsenal's and the Newport Chemical Depot at Vermillion, Ind.

Print this story   |   Email this story