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STATEMENT BY THE UNITED STATES ARMY:
MR. MICHAEL A. PARKER
DIRECTOR, CHEMICAL MATERIALS AGENCY

BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ON CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION

  OCTOBER 30, 2003  

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am Michael Parker and I am pleased to have the opportunity to address this committee. I consider it an honor to serve as the Director of the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency. In this capacity, I am responsible for the safe storage and disposal of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile and non-stockpile materiel. My mandate is destruction of U.S. chemical materiel while providing maximum safety to our workers, the public, and the environment. While my program must adhere to schedules, meet international treaty deadlines, and remain within budget, I want to emphasize right up front, and throughout my testimony, that our primary consideration is safety to the public as well as the workforce.

Our mission, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, includes the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program that enhances emergency response capabilities on chemical stockpile storage installations and in surrounding communities. In addition, under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, we provide chemical weapons destruction assistance to Russia and other nations of the former Soviet Union . The Chemical Materials Agency, which is still provisional, was formed earlier this year by combining the missions of the former Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization with the chemical storage function of the former Soldier and Biological Chemical Command. The Chemical Materials Agency concept plan is being finalized, and we expect to be able to formalize the new organization within the next few weeks. The new organization will resolve several issues raised by the General Accounting Office in its recent report Chemical Weapons: Sustained Leadership, Along with Key Strategic Management Tools, Is Needed to Guide DOD's Destruction Program. It establishes clear oversight relationships and removes fragmentation that has previously hampered execution of the Program. We have stepped up strategic planning and risk management efforts that will help us to be able to more effectively manage to the goals we set for ourselves, track our progress, and monitor our performance.

Our program is subject to intense oversight from the Department of Defense and Department of the Army. Mr. Claude Bolton, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics & Technology and the Army Acquisition Executive, provides oversight and has overall program responsibility. The Chemical Demilitarization Program is a Category 1-D Major Acquisition Program. The Honorable Michael Wynne, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and the Defense Acquisition Executive, serves as the milestone decision authority. General Paul Kern, Commander, U.S. Army Materiel Command, exercises oversight for storage functions and the operational aspects of chemical disposal.

Since this Program's inception almost 20 years ago, we have had many successes, and encountered many challenges. Our focus on the ultimate goal to destroy all U.S. chemical warfare material while ensuring maximum protection to the public, the workers, and the environment has remained constant.

Presently, three disposal facilities in the continental United States are operating. Our facility at Deseret Chemical Depot, Utah is processing VX nerve agent in rockets, projectiles, and ton containers. Our disposal facility in Anniston, Alabama has been processing GB nerve agent in rockets since early August and has surpassed expectations. In its first 40 days of operation, the Anniston facility processed 652 more munitions than the combined amount that the Tooele facility and the pilot facility at Johnston Island processed in their first 40 days while maintaining an excellent safety record. In April of this year, we began neutralization operations of mustard agent in ton containers at Aberdeen, Maryland, two years ahead of its original construction schedule. The Aberdeen facility is the first of its kind, and we have encountered challenges there that required us to slow down the ramp-up schedule for agent operations. We have demonstrated that the technology works on an industrial level, having successfully destroyed 111,470 pounds of the blister agent Mustard, and it is now up to us to work out the kinks. I have confidence that our workers at Aberdeen will live up to the task. Additionally, all three operating disposal facilities recently passed the Department of the Army Inspector General Chemical Surety Inspection, demonstrating that chemical agent operations are conducted in a safe, secure and reliable manner.

Our pilot facility on Johnston Island, which finished operations nearly three years ago, has almost completed closure. All secondary waste has been processed, equipment has been decommissioned, and buildings demolished. A formal closure ceremony is planned for November 4-5 of this year. We are proud of this achievement, and have learned many lessons from the Johnston Island work that will help us to improve operations and closure for the remaining facilities.

Facilities at Umatilla, Oregon; Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Newport, Indiana, are expected to start agent operations soon. These facilities are profiting from the tremendous operating experience gained during pilot operations at Johnston Island and the facilities that are currently operating.

The Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives Program identified destruction technologies for the two remaining stockpile sites at Pueblo, Colorado and Blue Grass, Kentucky. Both sites will use neutralization-based agent destruction methods. Presently, in accordance with public law, these facilities are managed separately under the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives Program and are not currently under the purview of the Chemical Materials Agency.

We take pride in having destroyed more than 26 percent of the original U.S. chemical stockpile, and we have done so safely and in an environmentally sound manner. Each chemical munition destroyed makes our citizens safer. In the emergency preparedness area, all storage installations have achieved and are maintaining full readiness to respond to an emergency. We are working with the Department of Homeland Security, state, and local emergency management agencies to help the communities around the chemical storage installations enhance their emergency response capabilities. We have accomplished a great deal, the great majority of equipment is in place and operational in all states. We worked with the State of Alabama to develop a solution that addresses the preparedness concerns of the citizens in Calhoun County and surrounding counties and enabled us to start operations at the Anniston disposal facility. Just this month we completed the over-pressurization of schools in Alabama identified by local elected officials. Preparedness requirements have evolved, and in some cases the equipment that was provided previously is nearing the end of its shelf life, requiring replacement. We are working with the Department of Homeland Security to forecast out-year requirements such that the budget request to the Congress will reflect these preparedness requirements more fully.

Overall, we have not been able to move destruction along as quickly as originally envisioned. Earlier this year we developed cost and schedule estimates for a new Acquisition Program Baseline, which the Defense Acquisition Executive approved in April. We took a good look at what we really can do, from a technical and operational perspective, and concluded that we must plan conservatively. The new Acquisition Program Baseline places objectives for completion of disposal activities at all facilities between 2008 and 2011, except for the Blue Grass site, for which schedules are currently being developed. The new Acquisition Program Baseline is based on a schedule that we believe is achievable. Congressional support of the President's budget proposal is therefore essential for us to stay on track. Due to the technical complexity of chemical disposal operations and constantly evolving regulations and new interpretations of existing regulations that impact our program, we will always face unforeseen challenges that sometimes make a schedule extension hard to avoid. Inevitably, cost increases are associated with the resolution of these issues. We are doing what we can to address them and to find creative solutions that enable us to overcome technical challenges, continually improve our excellent safety record, achieve and maintain environmental compliance, and minimize cost and schedule impacts. Let me say again, to do this requires full program funding. The Secretary of Defense has challenged us to take all available measures to move the Program forward as quickly as possible, and we are working hard to meet this challenge.

Let me offer some examples of the significant issues we currently face. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promulgated new Airborne Exposure Limits for nerve agents, and the standards for mustard agent are expected by spring of next year. These new more stringent limits will require us to monitor for these chemical agents at much lower levels than we have previously. Although we have technology that is capable of detecting chemical agent at these extremely low levels, it is proven only in a laboratory environment and application to a plant setting will be problematic. Under operating conditions, there are many chemicals that are not chemical warfare agent that interfere with chemical agent monitors. The lower our monitoring levels, the higher the probability of interference that causes false alarms. More false alarms slow operations and lower worker confidence in the monitoring program, which in turn undermines the overall safety program. As I said before, we are working to meet this challenge.

Public outreach continues to be vital to our mission. Our outreach program has received superb ratings from the Department of Defense Inspector General, and the outreach program for the accelerated Aberdeen Chemical Agent Disposal Facility received the Department of the Army Community Relations Award of Excellence in 2002. We continue to inform and work with citizens to increase public understanding and support of our mission. Many headlines recently have focused on public opposition to the plan to ship hydrolysate from VX neutralization operations at Newport, Indiana, to Permafix, a licensed disposal facility located in Dayton, Ohio. On October 13, Parsons, the Newport Systems Contractor, issued a stop work order to Permafix at its Dayton, Ohio site, and is beginning efforts to terminate the contract for convenience based upon an inability to obtain certain necessary regulatory approvals. The Army feels this is a prudent step taken by Parsons that will allow necessary time for the project to evaluate other options and determine a path forward for hydrolysate disposal. Off-site disposal of agent hydrolysate was an integral part of the proposal approved by the Defense Acquisition Executive to accelerate neutralization of agent stored in ton containers at two sites. This method currently performs well at our Aberdeen, Maryland site. If we cannot identify a suitable off-site disposal facility for the agent hydrolysate from Newport, we will temporarily store hydrolysate on-site, subject to environmental regulatory approval, until a final disposal option has been identified.

The last point I would like to discuss is compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention. This treaty sets timelines for destruction of chemical weapons, all of which we have met or exceeded to date. The next major milestone requires the destruction of 45% of all Category I chemical weapons by April 29, 2004. The deadline for destruction of 100% of Category I chemical weapons is April 29, 2007. The treaty permits extensions to these deadlines if requested by the state party and approved by the Conference of States Parties to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). With our current destruction schedule, we will not be able to meet the existing deadlines under the Chemical Weapons Convention. As a result, last month the United States formally submitted a request for an extension of the Chemical Weapons Convention 45% deadline from April 2004 to December 2007. I am pleased to report that the Conference of States Parties to the OPCW approved our extension request late last week. We are confident we can meet the revised December 2007 date. We consider it important to continue to meet our international obligations and to maintain our leadership role in chemical demilitarization. Let me also emphasize that the United States is not the only Government that has found it necessary to request an extension to the destruction deadlines established under the Chemical Weapons Convention. It is most important to conduct our mission safely, and we will not sacrifice safety for speed. We owe this to our workers and the citizens living near the chemical storage sites, to assure them that we are doing this job without endangering them.

I have come before you today to assure you that we will get this job done, no matter what challenges we face, and to ask for your support to this crucial mission. Let me reiterate that the best way Congress can help us is to fully fund the Chemical Demilitarization Program as outlined in the President's budget. We share the common goal of destroying these weapons as safely and expeditiously as possible, and we want to get that message across to your constituents. Your public support of our Program can make a vital difference. All of us will be safer once we have disposed of the last chemical weapon on U.S. soil. At the same time, we are making the United States more secure by extending a helping hand to Russia to aid them in their disposal efforts. Thank you again for allowing me to address this Committee today, and I look forward to your questions.

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