Umatilla Chemical Depot, Hermiston, Ore. - The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF) has surpassed the 50 percent mark for destroying the original stockpile of chemical warfare agents at the Umatilla Chemical Depot. This includes all
of the nerve agent and a portion of the mustard agent destroyed since the start of chemical operations in 2004.
As of Aug. 6, the UMCDF had destroyed more than 1,858 tons of liquid chemical agents, or half the original total of 3,717 tons stored at Umatilla since the 1960s.
"This is an exciting time to be a part of this program," said Gary Anderson, the U.S. Army's Site Project Manager at the UMCDF. "In my first month here, I can clearly see the expertise and desire to ensure success. I'm confident we'll continue to live up to the high expectations and trust our work has generated in the community."
"This is a great accomplishment for all of the 1,200 employees at the depot and disposal facility," said Lt. Col. Kris Perkins, commander of the Umatilla Chemical Depot. "Safety and compliance will remain a continued focus."
The UMCDF began incinerating chemical agents in September 2004 and has since destroyed all of Umatilla's GB and VX nerve agents. Although the UMCDF has processed only 50 percent of the chemical agent, it has destroyed more that 99 percent of the individual chemical munitions in the Umatilla stockpile.
The UMCDF took nearly six years to process the first half of its chemical agent stockpile because most of the nerve agent was stored in relatively small amounts in rockets, land mines, artillery shells and bombs.
The UMCDF is expected to take two years or less to destroy the last half of its stockpile because mustard agent is stored in only one configuration - large steel containers with no
explosives, allowing larger volumes of agent to be processed on a daily basis through the facility's two Liquid Incinerators.
Now in its final campaign, the UMCDF has fewer than 2,100 mustard ton containers remaining to be processed. The facility began mustard processing in June 2009.
As chemical agent disposal plants around the country move through their mustard agent stockpiles, the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency and its contractors are rapidly increasing the percentage of U.S. stockpile destroyed. In July 2010, the U.S. surpassed the 75 percent completion mark for chemical agents in the original national stockpile.
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