A milestone in the history of warfare dating back to World War I is about to be reached as the United States prepares to destroy the last of its declared chemical weapons stockpile.
In southern Colorado, workers at the Army Pueblo Chemical Depot started destroying the weapons in 2016, and on June 22 completed their mission of neutralizing an entire cache of about 2,600 tons of mustard blister agent. The projectiles and mortars comprised about 8.5% of the country’s original chemical weapons stockpile of 30,610 tons of agent.
"Those sitting out there were not a threat," Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar said. But, he added, “you always wondered what might happen with them.” Williams noted that the military eliminated most of its existing stockpile by burning weapons at other, more remote sites such as Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean or at a chemical depot in the middle of the Utah desert. But the Kentucky site was adjacent to Richmond and only a few dozen miles away from Lexington, the state’s second-largest city.
Robotic equipment removed the weapons' fuses and bursters before the mustard agent was neutralized with hot water and mixed with a caustic solution to prevent the reaction from reversing. The byproduct was further broken down in large tanks swimming with microbes, and the mortars and projectiles were decontaminated at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and recycled as scrap metal.
Kingston Reif, an assistant U.S. secretary of defense for threat reduction and arms control, said the destruction of the last U.S. chemical weapon “will close an important chapter in military history, but one that we’re very much looking forward to closing.”
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