The Anniston Field Office (AFO) team destroyed more than 1 million munition components during a decade of support to the Colorado and Kentucky chemical weapons destruction facilities that ended April 3 with the destruction of the final non-contaminated rocket motor from the Kentucky plant.
“Anniston provided an outlet for our sites to send remnants of demilitarization for final destruction,” said Walton Levi, site project manager, Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant (PCAPP). “Their handling of the non-agent contaminated explosive components of our stockpiles freed up the two destruction facilities to concentrate on the agent-contaminated components and enabled us to meet the treaty schedule.”
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons inspectors will verify destruction of these rocket motors satisfies the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty requirements for Anniston.
In Colorado, more than 978,000 non-contaminated explosive components including propellants, bursters and fuzes removed from munitions were shipped to the AFO Static Detonation Chamber (SDC) on the Anniston Army Depot for destruction, which concluded in the summer of 2023.
Levi said the Anniston SDC, with its approximately 70 workers, “tackled a big job with a small but mighty crew.” He added that at the 2011 completion of the destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile in Alabama, “trained and eager workers were available to help the remaining stockpile sites, including ours, fulfill their missions.” Levi said PCAPP employed more than 200 former Anniston workers when agent destruction operations began in Colorado in 2016.
While the last munition in the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed at the Kentucky plant July 7, 2023, Anniston continued to process more than 65,000 non-contaminated motors separated from VX and GB nerve agent-filled rockets during the Blue Grass rocket destruction campaigns. The AFO team also led the engineering development of improved processing systems and testing for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant (BGCAPP).
“We’ve been able to turn to Anniston for their many years of SDC experience, which has helped us several times along the way because they’ve done it all from destroying chemical and conventional munitions as well as components,” said Shannon Pendergrass, site project manager, BGCAPP. “They have been agile enough to meet changing needs throughout the years. It was a perfect fit for Anniston to handle the non-contaminated rocket motors from BGCAPP. This improved our timeline for processing agent-contaminated components in our SDCs and kept valuable expertise available through the startup of our SDCs.”
A key highlight of Anniston’s contribution to the overall U.S. chemical demilitarization program was serving as a center for excellence for Demilitarization Protective Ensembles, which kept workers protected while performing tasks in the toxic areas of the plants. Highly trained subject matter experts provided on-site training to each facility focused on the proper techniques, best practices and lessons learned from throughout the program.
The expert AFO staff also provided technical evaluation and support for both sites during operations and will continue to do so on a limited basis through the closure phases.
Now its function is complete, the AFO SDC facility will be decommissioned and demolished, while the Anniston Army Depot will continue its conventional military missions.
