U.S. destroys a Chemical weapons stockpile

The United States’ last declared chemical weapon an aging rocket filled with Sarin nerve agent was destroyed on July 7 at the Blue Grass Army Depot at a Kentucky munitions plant, the Pentagon affirmed, ending a decades-long operation to cull U.S. stocks of deadly toxins.
Chemical agents, whose terrifying use throughout World War I led to global proliferation despite their horrifying effects, are considered weapons of mass destruction. They can disperse gases, liquids, aerosols or powders intended to kill or incapacitate their victims. Some cause a person’s skin to blister. Others induce suffocation or destroy the nervous system.


At its peak, the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile measured about 30,000 metric tons.
Congress directed the weapons’ eradication in 1986. The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, which the United States joined with 192 countries to forbid their creation and stockpiling, required complete elimination by Sept. 30 of this year. Since then, 3.5 million munitions were dismantled along with thousands of containers used to store their agents.
In Colorado, mustard agents were drained from shells, diluted in hot water and other elements, and then introduced to microbes that broke them down further, said Michael Abaie, who oversaw the disposal program. The process is akin to using bacteria in septic system, he said.
At the Kentucky depot, nerve agents were mixed with hot water and caustic soda to reduce their toxicity before being shipped to another facility for incineration.
Some weapons, mostly older mustard rounds, had solidified and couldn’t be drained. They were inserted into a detonation chamber, where the material was heated, rendering gas safe enough to be purified and released.
Over the next three to four years, the sites will undergo decontamination before being decommissioned and demolished.