Johnston Island disposal workers mark end of task
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Johnston Island is free of chemical weapons, the facility that destroyed them is rubble, and those responsible for completing the tasks are gathering in Honolulu this week, Army officials said.
Tonight, during a reception and ceremony at the Hale Koa, the people responsible for clearing Johnston Island of its dangerous stockpiles will celebrate the completion of the decade-long effort.
About 100 people are expected to attend the event in the Luau Garden, said Greg Mahall, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency.
On Wednesday, a group of them will fly to the island to place a plaque on a coral cap that seals off the former site of the chemical disposal facility.
The Army will continue, in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency, to conduct tests on the island and assure its safe status, Mahall said.
Eventually the island, which is a sanctuary for the more than 500,000 seabirds that frequent the atoll for roosting and nesting, will be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Johnston Island served as the disposal site for almost 7 percent of the U.S. stockpiles of blister, mustard and nerve gases in bombs projectiles, mortars and land mines.
Most of the stores were transported to Johnston Atoll from Okinawa in 1971 and from Germany in the early 1990s, Mahall said.
The chemical weapons destruction facility on Johnston Island opened in 1990, he said, and the last of more than 410,000 individual munitions was destroyed Nov. 29, 2000.
Since that date, Mahall said, the Army has worked to safely dismantle the facility, which was the first of nine such facilities to complete its mission.
"It's history," he said of the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal facility.
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
