Pine Bluff Chemical Activity

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Pine Bluff Chemical Activity (abbreviated PBCA) is a U.S. Army agency that controls the chemical weapon storage site located at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The U.S. Army has stored approximately twelve percent of its original chemical weapons at the Pine Bluff Arsenal since 1942.

Pine Bluff Arsenal was also the home for the Binary Chemical Weapons Facility. The facility created the two toxic agents that would combine to form VX as well as built the bombs to deliver the nerve agent. Construction of the facility began in the mid-1980s and was mothballed prior to completion in the early 1990s as part of the chemical weapons treaties^{[citation needed]}.

The Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility was completed in 2002, and the Army began weapons disposal in March 2005. By December 2007, the facility had destroyed all of its GB (sarin)- containing rockets and began processing VX-containing munitions. In February 2008 they processed their last VX-containing rocket and in May 2008 began processing VX landmines.[1] Landmine processing is expected to be completed in the summer of 2008 and the facility will then be changed over to begin processing ton containers of mustard gas, the last remaining chenical weapons on site.[2] As of May 2008, 15% of the Arsenal's total chemical stockpile of 3,850 metric tons had been destroyed.[3][4]

The Chemical Biological (CB) Defense activities at Pine Bluff Arsenal also consists of the manufacture of personnel and equipment decontamination kits; repair and testing of chemical protective clothing; and rebuilding and calibrating defensive chemical test equipment.

The Pine Bluff Binary Destruction Facility began operations in December 2005 and in April 2006, completed destruction of DF or methylphosphonic difluoride, an ingredient in the binary weapon deployment of sarin. The destruction of QL, or diisopropyl aminoethylmethyl phosphonite, a binary component for VX was accomplished between April and October 2006.[5]

[edit] External links

• Official site

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