The United States’ vast and ghastly stockpile of chemical weapons is finally gone, a process that began with outrage after the Army tested some in Utah.
Munitions operators Amira VanDall, left, and Shane Hurt working at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Ky., June 22, 2023. Decades behind its initial schedule, the dangerous job of eliminating the world’s only remaining declared stockpile of lethal chemical munitions will be completed soon.
The destruction of the stockpile has taken decades, and the Army says the work is just about finished. The depot near Pueblo destroyed its last weapon in June; the remaining handful at another depot in Kentucky will be destroyed in the next few days. And when they are gone, all of the world’s publicly declared chemical weapons will have been eliminated.
The United States once also had a sprawling germ warfare and biological weapons program; those weapons were destroyed in the 1970s. “We had to fight, and it took a long time, but I think we should be very proud,” he said. “This is the first time, globally, that an entire class of weapons of mass destruction will be destroyed.”
The immense U.S. stockpile and the decades-long effort to dispose of it are both a monument to human folly and a testament to human potential, people involved say. The job took so long in part because citizens and lawmakers insisted that the work be done without endangering surrounding communities. For generations, the U.S. military vowed to use chemical weapons only in response to an enemy chemical attack — and then set out to amass so many that no enemy would dare. By the 1960s the United States had a highly secret network of manufacturing plants and storage complexes around the globe.
Williams was a 36-year-old Vietnam War veteran and cabinetmaker in 1984 when Army officials announced that nerve agent would be burned at the Blue Grass depot. Following orders from Congress to find another way, the Defense Department developed new techniques to destroy chemical weapons without burning.
It yields a residue that is mostly ordinary table salt, Levi said, but is laced with heavy metals that require handling as hazardous waste.
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