July 6, 2009
- Portland, Oregon
Army: Umatilla depot marks VX disposal milestone
File photos of weapons storage bunkers at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.
This is a press release courtesy of the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency
Workers at the Umatilla Chemical Depot (UMCD) safely moved the last of 156 large VX nerve agent spray tanks from depot storage to the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF) today for disposal. Plans are to destroy the last of the spray tanks by next week. “This was a great team effort—our workers did an excellent job in safely and securely moving spray tanks to the disposal plant,” said Lt. Col. Bob Stein, depot commander. “The community is just that much safer now that these large munitions are gone from storage.” VX-filled spray tanks, which were designed to be mounted on military aircraft, are being destroyed simultaneously with the VX M55 rockets. The UMCDF has multiple processing lines, which allows for simultaneous processing of different munitions. Spray tanks are significantly larger than other chemical munitions. Each tank is 15 and a half feet long and contains 160 gallons of VX agent. The 156 spray tanks contained about 106 tons of VX agent, which comprised nearly 30 percent of the total VX agent tonnage at Umatilla. Because of their size, they are transported on flatbed trailers from depot storage to the disposal plant in the sealed “overpack” containers in which they were stored. Depot storage crews began moving spray tanks to the disposal facility on Nov. 19. The first spray tank was destroyed on Nov. 23. The VX rocket campaign began on Oct. 29 and is to be completed by February 2008. The VX disposal campaign followed the GB (Sarin) munitions disposal campaign, which lasted from Sept. 2004 to July 2007. The overall VX disposal campaign should be complete by mid-2009. It includes rockets, spray tanks, artillery projectiles, land mines, and a single bulk container or “ton container.” Depot storage workers also safely moved the single VX ton container from depot storage to the disposal plant on Nov. 19. It was destroyed on Nov. 26. This was the only ton container of VX agent located at Umatilla. It contained VX agent from a mid-1980s “drill and transfer” campaign to eliminate leaking munitions stored at the depot. When the VX campaign is complete, depot storage crews will eventually begin to move mustard blister agent ton containers to the UMCDF for disposal. That movement will mark the beginning of the third and final agent disposal campaign at Umatilla. |
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