Army completes chemical weapons mission at Johnston
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
The Army today completes a lonely mission it has been carrying out for 30 years — guarding toxic chemical weapons at isolated Johnston Atoll.
U.S. Army photo
The unit that has watched over stockpiles of mustard and nerve gas stored on the central North Pacific atoll is being officially shut down today in decertification ceremonies there. Seven percent of the United States' stockpile of chemical weapons was stored on Johnston. Destruction of the weapons was completed late last year.
A civilian contract worker moves a pallet of barrels that contain VX nerve gas land mines in preparation for destruction in the incinerator. Over the 10-year life of the incineration program, no worker suffered a serious injury.
The U.S. Army Chemical Activity, Pacific, and its predecessors have been in charge since the first chemical weapons were shipped to Johnston. Now, USACAP's mission is complete. U.S. Army Pacific Commander Lt. Gen. Edwin P. Smith — in ceremonies on the island today—will confer on the unit the Army Superior Unit Award, for performing its duty without a serious incident.
Toxic releases described as minor have occurred from time to time, the most recent in December 2000, when technicians found materials leaking nerve gas in a bin of materials that had been run through an incinerator. The Army said blood tests showed no one in the area had detectable levels of toxins in their systems.
The horrific mines, bombs, mortars and rockets containing Sarin and VX nerve gas and the blister agent known as mustard, were incinerated during 10 years using the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System or JACADS.
It was the prototype for similar facilities at chemical munitions storage sites on the Mainland and is the first to have completed its task. The work begins bringing the United States into compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty of 1997.
Chemical weapons were shipped for storage to Johnston in 1971 from Okinawa, in 1990 from West Germany, and in 1991 from the Solomon Islands.
Once U.S. authorities recognized that political considerations prevented the further movement of chemical weapons, they launched a program to destroy them in place. Under the jurisdiction of JACADS, with the support of USACAP, the facility has destroyed of more than 400,000 units containing the chemicals.
"The soldiers, Department of Defense civilians and contractors who have safely destroyed the chemical weapons on Johnston Island should be extremely proud of their accomplishment," said Army lt. Gen. Paul Kern, deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.
The Army USACAP detachment at Johnston included about 250 men in three companies — soldiers who handled the chemical weapons, a company of military police and an administrative company.
Johnston, some 800 miles southwest of Honolulu, is a patch of reef and sandbars that never had a native human population, and has only been made habitable through extraordinary efforts. Johnston will forever bear evidence of the military's use of the atoll, which converted it into a small city built around a runway, on an island made of material dredged from the lagoon. From the air, it looks something like a gargantuan aircraft carrier.
Even after the chemical weapons plant is gone, there remain other persistent reminders of mishaps at Johnston. In 1962, a test nuclear warhead blew up on the launch pad there, leaving about 25 acres contaminated with radioactive plutonium and americium.
Wildlife biologists say they can detect in the tissues of fish the residues of a spill of Agent Orange defoliant that was once stored on the island, and of PCBs from transformers dumped into the lagoon. The transformers have been removed and the Agent Orange taken away, but their chemical signatures remain.
The future of the atoll is not clear. Johnston is a wildlife refuge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Army says its future disposition will be worked out between the service, the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency, which has overseen the chemical weapons disposal program.
Army Public Affairs spokesman Joe Bonfiglio said the munitions disposal factory will be dismantled, but the fate of other facilities, like dormitories, bunkers, sewer and water plants, has not been determined. The dismantling is being run by civilians and contractors under the Army's Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization, which has allotted 33 months to the closing.
