The World - News from Feb. 12, 1988

The national Centers for Disease Control backed the Army’s plan for disposing of old chemical weapons stored at eight sites nationwide, agreeing it would be safer to burn the compounds where they are. The Army is under a 1985 congressional order to destroy about 25,000 tons of chemical weapons, averaging 25 years old, stored across the South, Midwest and West. The stockpile consists of six chemical weapons, including nerve gases and poisons such as mustard gas. Last year, the Defense Department propsed building an incinerator at each of the eight sites and burining the chemical weapon compounds to break them down completely.