MR. KELSO C. HORNE III
Director
U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity
CMA History
In 2003 the Army combined elements from the U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command and Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization to consolidate the Army’s chemical agent, munitions storage and demilitarization functions under a single organization. The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), managed the nine chemical weapons stockpiles, assessed and destroyed recovered chemical warfare materiel, and managed the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program to support communities around the stockpile sites.
The nine stockpile sites were located at Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon; Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah; Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado; Pine Bluff Chemical Activity at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas; Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana; Blue Grass Chemical Activity at Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky; Anniston Chemical Activity at Anniston Army Depot, Alabama; Edgewood Chemical Activity at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS) on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, about 750 miles southwest of Hawaii.
In December 2006, the Agency completed destroying the Nation’s former chemical warfare production facilities, binary chemical weapons inventory in November 2007 and declared recovered chemical warfare materiel in 2010. By January 2012, all chemical weapons were destroyed at seven of the nine U.S. stockpile sites, eliminating nearly 90 percent of the original declared chemical stockpile.
In July 2012, the Agency was redesignated from a major subordinate command to an AMC Separate Reporting Activity and renamed the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity.
Today, CMA continues to support warfighter readiness by providing centralized management to DOD for the response to recovered chemical warfare materiel within the United States, including CWM assessment and destruction, in a safe, environmentally compliant and cost effective manner in full compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.
