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• Edgy Veggie

Army considering blowing up chemical weapons in Pueblo

Another reason to set deadlines you can meet — if you don’t, apparently you put yourself at risk of having to explode vicious chemical weapons in Pueblo, Colorado.

They’re sitting there in the Pueblo Chemical Depot, “creating a safer tomorrow:”

Since 1942, the depot’s missions have shifted and expanded, and today the depot’s mission is to ensure the safe, secure storage of the chemical weapons stockpile. Encompassing approximately 23,000 acres, PCD reports to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA).

 

 

Mustard gas shells at the Pueblo Chemical Depot | Wikimedia Commons

A treaty says the US has got to get rid of them. But it’s taking too long, and it seems that the preferred quick method of destroying the weapons is blowing them up.

 

According to the AP:

Under the gun to destroy the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile – and now all but certain to miss their deadline – Army officials have a plan to hasten the process: Blow some of them up.The Army would use explosives to destroy some of the Cold War-era weapons, which contain some of the nastiest compounds ever made, in two communities in Kentucky and Colorado that fought down another combustion-based plan years ago.

[Environmentalists] argue the plan violates the Army’s promise to dispose of the mustard agent at the two sites by neutralizing it – a process that involves mixing it with water and either bacteria or a combination of fuel and superheated air – and taking it to a hazardous waste dump. That takes longer than simply destroying the weapons by explosion.

So. What’s there? According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative:

Pueblo has a stockpile of 2,611 tons of mustard agent.

I don’t want to ruin your lunch or anything, but if you’re curious, here’s a link to photos and a description of the physiological effects of mustard agent when used as a chemical weapon. Here’s a preview, again from the AP story: “Mustard gas can disable an opposing army by causing severe, painful but nonfatal blistering. It can also cause cancer, and even low levels of exposure may threaten workers and the public.”

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