US EPA

5033737 

Technical Report 

Chemical Demilitarization-Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (Chem Demil-ACWA) 

Whyne, C 

2013 

Chemical Demilitarization-Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (Chem Demil-ACWA) is performing a portion of the chemical warfare materiel elimination mission. In 1996, Congress and the President, responding to public concerns about the safe destruction of chemical weapons, established and later expanded the ACWA program (Public Laws 104-208, 105-261, 106-79 and 107-248). The DoD was charged with identifying and demonstrating two or more alternative technologies to incineration for the destruction of assembled chemical weapons. The Defense Acquisition Executive assigned Program Manager (PM) ACWA the responsibility for developing neutralization technologies to eliminate the chemical weapons stockpiles located at Pueblo, CO, and Blue Grass, KY (July 16, 2002, and February 3, 2003, respectively). At time of initiation, the ACWA program was known as the Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment program. When the assessment phase was complete, the ACWA program shifted its focus from assessing chemical weapons destruction technologies to implementing full-scale pilot testing. As a result, the program was renamed Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives in June 2003, to better reflect the new program goals. To raise the program s visibility and obtain the necessary resources, PM ACWA was redesignated as the Program Executive Office ACWA on October 1, 2012.