Incineration of Chemical Arms Backed

America’s arsenal of chemical weapons can be safely incinerated at a few sites around the country, despite chemical releases and violations at the only two operational incinerators, according to a report released Tuesday.

“The risk to the public and to the environment of continued storage overwhelms the potential risk of processing and destruction of stockpiled chemical agent,” said the report by the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academies of Science. “The destruction of aging chemical munitions should proceed as quickly as possible.”

The council did not weigh in on whether incineration was preferable to other methods of neutralizing the chemical agents.

Critics who favor other options said the report ignored important incidents and glossed over the dangers of incineration.

Under an international treaty, the United States agreed to dispose of 31,500 tons of deadly nerve agents and toxic blister agents by 2007, although the Defense Department has said it will probably miss that deadline by two to three years. The project is expected to cost $24 billion.

About a quarter of the stockpile has been destroyed at weapon incinerators in Tooele, Utah, and on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

“The technology is capable of doing the job if it’s run correctly, and there’s no reason it cannot be run correctly if management puts its mind to it and trains its work force properly,” said Charles Kolb, chairman of the committee.

The council report identified 40 cases in which chemical agents leaked into areas where they were not supposed to have been and three in which they escaped from an incinerator building. But it said the amounts that escaped were too small to threaten the public.