Yahoo News – by Keith CoffmanDENVER (Reuters) – The destruction of 2,600 tons of World War Two-era mustard agent weapons banned by international treaty began on Wednesday at a U.S. Army depot in southern Colorado, officials said.
The first mortar shells or projectiles containing the blistering chemical were moved into a specially designed chamber within a building at the Pueblo Chemical Depot to be neutralized, said spokesman Thomas Schultz.
“Crews out here are very excited,” Schultz said. “We’ve been waiting a very long time.”
Mustard agent is a carcinogen that if exposed to skin causes inflammation and blistering to tissue and in larger doses can be lethal, according to the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative program, or ACWA, the federal agency charged with destroying America’s chemical weapons stockpile.
Mustard gas was used extensively in World War One but outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. The mustard gas now being destroyed has been in storage for decades.
The U.S. military stockpiled tons of chemical weapons beginning in the 1940s through the Cold War era. But under terms of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, all nations that were signatories to the pact agreed to destroy chemical munitions within their own country.
“The Pueblo team is ready to play its part in meeting our nation’s commitment to the 100 percent destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile,” Conrad F. Whyne, ACWA’s executive officer, said in a statement.
The agency said 1,300 “problematic” mortars – shells that were either breached for past testing or those that have leaked minute amounts of vapor – are the first munitions scheduled for destruction at the Pueblo depot.
Crews employ an elaborate Explosive Destruction System, which the Army said has been used at other similar operations across the country to render the weapons safe.
The process entails placing a shell inside a stainless steel vessel, where a small charge is detonated to eliminate the explosive capability of the mortar. Chemicals that neutralize the mustard agent are then added.
The Pueblo facility houses 8 percent of the country’s original chemical weapons stockpile and contains the nation’s largest store of mustard weapons.
Another 523 tons of nerve and blister agents are stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky where a similar destruction program is set to begin next year, Schultz said. He said 90 percent of chemical weapons in the U.S. arsenal already have been destroyed.
Once the mustard agents are destroyed, crews will begin destroying the remaining munitions at the Pueblo facility, with full de-commissioning of the plant set for 2019, officials said.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Bill Trott)
http://news.yahoo.com/u-begins-destruction-chemical-weapons-stockpiles-colorado-depot-211753755.html
This is being done to generate a headline that says “Obama Destroys Chemical Weapons”, while he douses us with chemical weapons from airplanes everyday.
“Mustard gas was used extensively in World War One but outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. The mustard gas now being destroyed has been in storage for decades.”
That’s the only reason they’re destroying it.
Too easily traceable to send to their terrorists.