30 Nov 2000

Last of Chemical Weapons Stockpile Destroyed on Johnston Island

Army, Washington Demilitarization Company Plan Facility's Closure

JOHNSTON ISLAND, Pacific Ocean – The U.S. Army reached a monumental milestone today -- the destruction of the last munition on Johnston Atoll. The Project Manager for Chemical Stockpile Disposal (whose mission is to destroy all U.S. chemical warfare stockpile materiel) and the U.S. Army Pacific Command (whose mission has been to safely store these munitions) partnered together to reach this milestone.

The Army's first fully-integrated chemical weapons disposal facility — the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS) — just completed destruction of more than 13,000 land mines filled with nerve agent VX. This marks an important and historic step toward fulfilling the Army's mission to remove the threat of chemical weapons from the pacific community and the nation.

The VX land mines were manufactured after World War II and designed to disperse lethal agent upon explosion. They are filled with VX nerve agent — a clear, odorless and tasteless gas — which is a rapid acting lethal agent that affects the nervous system. More than 100,000 VX land mines were manufactured in the United States and 13,302 were stored on Johnston Island.

"Completion of the VX land mine campaign, the last of the Johnston Island chemical weapons stockpile, paves the way for the Army to close its doors at JACADS," said James Bacon, the Army's Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization (PMCD). "JACADS is a model of safe and successful operations for the Army's eight other disposal sites, as well as for other countries that are looking to safely destroy their stockpiles of chemical weapons."

PMCD is planning to commemorate the end of successful disposal operations at JACADS in a series of events scheduled for next year, culminating in a ceremony on Johnston Island in the Fall of 2001.

"Over the past 10 years, JACADS has safely destroyed more than 400,000 rockets, projectiles, bombs, mortars, ton containers, and mines," said JACADS Project Manager Gary McCloskey. "JACADS also has destroyed more than 2,000 tons of chemical agent in the form of nerve agent (GB and VX) and blister agent (HD). Our 100 percent destruction of Johnston Island's stockpile adds up to six percent of the nation's total stockpile."

During the JACADS disposal campaigns, the Army tracked lessons learned to continuously improve and enhance safety for the workers, community, and environment. This knowledge and experience will be applied to the Army's other disposal facilities to ensure that safe destruction of chemical weapons continues. The Army also will share information with other countries that are researching technologies to destroy their chemical weapons stockpiles.

Washington Demilitarization Company, formerly the Raytheon Demilitarization Company, has been involved in JACADS since its inception, and has provided the design support, equipment procurement and installation, acceptance testing, and operations and maintenance of the facility.

"We have been looking forward to this day since JACADS started operating in June 1990," said Robert Love, Jr., Vice President for Washington Demilitarization Company and JACADS Program Director. "I am proud to have been a part of the team that has done its part to rid our country of chemical weapons."

Working in cooperation with several federal oversight agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region IX and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, PMCD is now is preparing to close JACADS. Part of the process leading to closure will include disposing of miscellaneous secondary waste that was produced during disposal operations. In addition, Chemical Agent Identification Sets that were shipped from Guam remain to be destroyed. The Army is currently working with the EPA to identify a safe and environmentally sound method to destroy these sets. Closure is scheduled to take up to 33 months.

In 1985, Congress directed the Army to destroy all stockpiled chemical agent and weapons. The Army established the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization to oversee the safe destruction of chemical warfare materiel, ensuring maximum protection to human health and the environment. The nation's chemical weapons stockpile is stored in Umatilla, Oregon; Pueblo, Colorado; Tooele, Utah; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Anniston, Alabama; Blue Grass, Kentucky; Newport, Indiana; Edgewood, Maryland; and on Johnston Island in the Pacific.