LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky marked a milestone on Wednesday as officials celebrated the final destruction of the remaining U.S. chemical weapon stockpile.
That stockpile has been at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Kentucky, for years. The last weapons were destroyed in July.
Workers at the depot destroyed rockets filled with GB nerve agent over the summer, completing a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons.
Kentucky U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell delivered the keynote address during the commemoration, along with other elected and Defense Department officials.
“Modern chemical weapons have haunted battlefields for over a century. Images of masked soldiers in the trenches of World War I and horrific scenes of Nazi concentration camps are etched into our collective memory," McConnell said.
The Kentucky senator championed the destruction of the stockpile and secured billions of dollars in funding.
“Chemical weapons make peace uneasy in our modern world, and the U.S. and our allies must continue to condemn the use of these vile weapons and punish those who deploy them.
McConnell said the people of Kentucky, especially in Madison County, made this a personal commitment.
“Kentucky has been home to over 500 tons of chemical weapons, including mustard, sarin, and VX, since the 1940s; and for years, the community coexisted with these munitions. President Reagan would eventually lead an international campaign calling for a global ban on the use of chemical weapons," McConnell said.
The Minority Leader remembered making a trip to the Blue Grass Army Depot soon after he was a newly sworn-in Senator. He said that's when he focused on cleaning up the site.
McConnell said it took a decade to convince lawmakers and the Pentagon to look for alternatives to burning the chemical weapons.
“By 2015, construction of a state-of-the-art facility to safely destroy the Depot’s chemical munitions was federally funded. This facility became fully operational not long after, and I was proud to join you in marking that milestone four years ago," he said. “This past July, the disposal of Kentucky’s chemical stockpile finally concluded. And for the first time in American history, we destroyed an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.
McConnell thanked the operators, technicians, construction workers, and other Department of Defense personnel for their work on the mission.
“It has been one of the great honors of my career to lead this charge at the federal level, and I thank you for trusting me to fight on your behalf," McConnell said.
The U.S. faced a Sept. 30 deadline to eliminate its remaining chemical weapons under the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1997 and was joined by 193 countries.
The munitions destroyed in Kentucky were the last of 51,000 M55 rockets with GB nerve agent — a deadly toxin also known as sarin — that have been stored at the depot since the 1940s.
Officials said the elimination of the U.S. stockpile is a major step forward for the Chemical Weapons Convention. Only three countries — Egypt, North Korea and South Sudan — have not signed the treaty. A fourth, Israel, has signed but not ratified the treaty.
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Copyright 2023 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press also contributed to this story.
