Mustard

The Army approved yesterday Aberdeen Proving Ground's plan to destroy its stockpile of World War II-era mustard agent by removing the deadly blistering agent from its metal containers -- into near boiling water, neutralizing it and dumping it in the Bush River.Initial plans had called for incinerating the mustard, but citizen opposition prompted the Army to seek a less offensive alternative, and Aberdeen's Edgewood facility has worked for years to gain federal and state approvals for its experimental disposal plan.

Sirens blasting from Aberdeen Proving Ground tomorrow will be the first clear signal that someone is preparing for the unlikely event of a major accident involving the Army post's large and potentially dangerous stockpile of mustard agent in a field along the Bush River.After the tests, set for 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., 41 sirens are to be installed by March in Harford, Baltimore and Kent counties."They will be the first visible thing to the public," said Robert Dickover, a Baltimore County emergency-preparedness official.

Eight months after finally disposing of the last of its once-vast stockpile of deadly mustard agent at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Army wants to bring to the base an artillery shell containing the blistering agent that was dumped in the ocean after World War I. Officials said the 10-pound, barnacle-encrusted ordnance, dredged up by a company collecting clams 20 miles off the coast of New Jersey, presents an opportunity to study the effects of deep-sea dumping...

Harford County residents filled Edgewood Senior Center last night to hear how the Army plans to destroy Aberdeen Proving Ground's 1,621-ton stockpile of mustard agent more than three years ahead of schedule. Some in the crowd of about 160 were APG workers living in nearby communities. Others recalled sitting in similar meetings a decade ago when the Army was proposing to incinerate the toxic material. Noting the risk of terrorism, the Army announced last week that it would speed destruction of the mustard agent, which is about 5 percent of the U.S. military's banned chemical weapons stockpile.

In the early 1990s, Aberdeen Proving Ground scientists Steve Harvey and Yu Chu Yang were researching how to defend soldiers from chemical attacks when the Army asked them to refocus their energies. What would be the best way, the Army wanted to know, for the United States to destroy its stockpile of toxic weapons? Finding an answer immersed Harvey and Yang, members of an alternative technologies team of nearly a dozen APG researchers and engineers, in a volatile mix of science, activism and politics.

CHESTERTOWN -- For long-time Kent County residents such as Walter Harris, it's one thing to grow accustomed to the window-rattling noise of routine munitions tests across Chesapeake Bay at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County.But it's another thing altogether to consider even a slim chance that a silent but poisonous cloud of mustard agent could drift across the three miles of water separating APG from the Eastern Shore and touch down in Kent County.As part of a congressional order to destroy an estimated 30,000 tons of obsolete mustard and nerve agents once considered crucial to the nation's weapons arsenal, the U.S. Army is planning to build a network of incinerators to burn the chemicals at eight government-owned stockpile locations.

Army officials fielded questions last night from a handful of community residents at the Edgewood Senior Center about problems workers have encountered in recent months in destroying World War II-vintage chemical weapons stored near the Bush River. Since work started in April to rid the base of a 1,600-ton stockpile of mustard agent - a banned, blistering substance with the consistency of molasses - several problems have cropped up at the destruction plant, including a power outage and low-level releases of vapor inside the plant.

Harford County residents, reacting to news of the Army's accelerated schedule for disposal of mustard agent at Aberdeen Proving Ground, worried yesterday about whether the new timetable would compromise the project's safety. Some said they would take their concerns to a public meeting with military officials next week. On Wednesday, the Army announced it would destroy the 1,621-ton stockpile of mustard agent - which has been stored in containers in an open yard at Aberdeen Proving Ground's Edgewood area since World War II - by the end of this year, more than three years ahead of schedule.