Old questions,

Johnston

new threats

JOHNSTON Atoll, about 1300 kilometres southwest of Honolulu, is a bleak, treeless, uninhabited former bird sanctuary. From the air it looks like an oversized aircraft carrier about half of the main island, Johnston, is taken up

by a three-kilometre-long runway.

Originally there were just two tiny islands on the atoll Johnston and Sand but they have been expanded and two artificial islands created for the military installations. Johnston Island has been increased twelvefold to 260 hectares.

The United States Army’s $3.1 billion plan to destroy its aging chemical weapons arsenal has stirred fears of potentially disastrous consequences. Although the final military environ mental impact report released last month claimed the hazards on Johnston Atoll were “minimal”, Pacific anxiety remains strong.

Testing for the full-scale burn-off of nerve and mustard gas stockpiles removed from Okinawa and moved to the atoll in 1971 is due to start soon. Full operation is expected by next month. The chemical weapon destruction plant, called the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS), has been built over several years.

The army plans to ship other chemical weapons from West Germany and destroy them in the four JACADS incinerators on Johnston Island. Among the US stockpile in Germany is an estimated 400 tonnes of lethal nerve gas GB (Sarin) and VX contained in about 100,000 8-inch and 155 mm shells.

Nerve gas causes convulsions and death sometimes within 10 minutes of exposure. Mustard blistering agents H, HD and HT are also among the weapons.

Comprising about 1 per cent of the total US chemical weapons arsenal, the chemical weapons have been stockpiled in the past few years at Clausen in the state of Rhineland- Palatinate, close to the French border. Under the army plan the shells would be transported in high-security convoys almost 50 km by road to Miesau, carried by train to the North Sea port of Nordenham, and then shipped to Johnston Atoll.

However, the weapons would not be destroyed until 1994 after the Okinawa and Johnston arsenals have been burnt off.

If the Johnston Atoll weapons burn-offs are considered suc cessful, chemical weapons stocks will be dismantled and des troyed on the mainland US in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Oregon and Utah. Within seven years about 30,000 tonnes of the weapons will be burned. □