The U.S. Inventory

USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED, warn the prominently displayed red-and-white signs at the U.S. Army arsenal at Pine Bluff, Ark. Situated about 35 miles from Little Rock, off a busy state highway, the facility is the only producer of toxins for chemical weapons in the U.S. Since work resumed in December after a 19-year halt, the arsenal has manufactured a chemical called DF, which becomes nerve gas when mixed with alcohol. Workers are also busy incinerating some 94,000 lbs. of an obsolete hallucinogenic agent known as BZ. Yet area residents profess to have few fears about the facility. "Nothing bothers people out here," says James Morgan, 46, an insurance agent who lives near the site. "I guess it's because they've been around the arsenal so long."

Pine Bluff is the only Army facility that makes lethal chemical compounds, but it is one of eight around the country where they are stored.* The entire U.S. arsenal consists of some 30,000 tons of deadly liquids and gases. About two-thirds of that hoard is kept in drums; the rest is contained in weapons ranging from some 3 million artillery rounds to nearly 500,000 rockets. Though virtually all are scheduled to be destroyed by the mid-1990s, the stockpiles have raised safety issues. Congress learned last April that the Army has discovered more than 1,000 leaking chemical weapons since 1981.

The Nixon Administration halted production in 1969 after a nerve-gas accident at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah killed more than 6,000 sheep. However, fears of an overwhelming Soviet advantage in chemical weapons led Congress to vote three years ago to resume manufacturing. As a safety measure, all new U.S. chemical weapons are made of "binary" compounds that are less toxic by themselves and can be stored and shipped separately. Only when the substances are combined, as in a fired artillery shell or an exploded ^ bomb, do they become deadly.

Nonetheless, the Democrat-controlled Congress remains uneasy over the prospect of rebuilding the U.S. chemical arsenal. While the Reagan Administration views such weapons as a deterrent against aggression, lawmakers earlier this year slashed $109 million from a Defense Department request for $186 million for chemical arms. Opponents have gained another powerful ally in the U.S. chemical industry. In April, Robert Roland, president of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, which represents the major U.S. chemical companies, testified before Congress for a "strong, effective international treaty" to ban such weapons. Representatives of U.S., Canadian, Japanese and European firms are now drafting a set of recommendations for facilitating an agreement and inspecting chemical-industry plants.

FOOTNOTE: *The other seven: Aberdeen, Md.; Lexington, Ky.; Anniston, Ala.; Newport, Ind.; Pueblo, Colo.; Tooele, Utah; and Umatilla, Ore.