Chemical demilitarization progresses.

The Army is scheduled to begin disposing of chemical agents at a sixth site this spring. The facility, at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas, will destroy approximately 3,850 tons of the nerve agents GB and VX and the blister agents HT and HD. That amounts to 12 percent of the U.S. stockpile of chemical agents.

As of 2 February, the Army had destroyed 11,076 tons of chemical agents, or about 35.1 percent of the total U.S. stockpile of chemical agents, and about 42 percent of all U.S. chemical munitions (mainly rockets and landmines).

The Army's first chemical agent disposal facility opened at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific in 1990 and completed its work in 2000, destroying approximately 6 percent of the Army's chemical agents. Other disposal facilities (with the percentages of the Army's chemical agent stockpile they store) began operating at Deseret Chemical Depot, Utah, in 1996 (44 percent); Anniston Army Depot, Alabama, in 2003 (7 percent); Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, in 2003 (5 percent); and Umatilla Chemical Depot, Oregon, in 2004 (12 percent). The disposal facility at Newport Chemical Depot, Indiana (4 percent), is scheduled to begin operations later this year. Other facilities are planned for Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky (2 percent), and Pueblo Chemical Depot, Colorado (8 percent).

The Deseret, Anniston, Umatilla, and Pine Bluff facilities use incineration to destroy chemical agents, as did Johnston Atoll. Aberdeen uses a neutralization technology, as will Newport, Blue Grass, and Pueblo.