Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
8/22/2014
Contractors on Aug. 5 demolished the last 10 of 50 deactivated Minuteman III silos previously operated by the 564th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana to comply with the New START Treaty, Global Strike Command said. The dismantlement comes two months after workers finished reconfiguring the multi-headed Minuteman III’s into single warheads. The 341st Civil Engineer Squadron had maintained the launch sites in caretaker status, with limited preservation, since 2008. To complete the deactivation at the last silo, T-49, workers maneuvered heavy machinery to bury the 110-ton launcher closure door and stuffed the launch tube with dirt, rendering the site inoperative.
The concluded Phase I cost $6 million and comprised the elimination of 50 launch facilities via dirt and gravel fill, removing and burying the launcher closure door, extracting the personal access hatch and hatches to the launcher support building, said Ken Vantiger, senior arms control analyst with Global Strike Command’s Plans and Requirements Division. The most recently destroyed silos now undergo a 60-day observation period, whereby Russian officials can verify the lawful elimination of the launch facilities under New START. For treaty purposes, officials cannot disturb the sites until they’re formally removed from the Air Force’s accountability. Russia can expedite the process by sending a team to inspect the sites by Sept. 4.
With an expected cost of $1.5 million, Phase II at Malmstrom began July 21 and consists of pouring concrete caps over the first 40 removed launchers, level grading of the 50 launch facilities, demolition of five missile alert facilities, destruction of cathode wells and environmental and HAZMAT surveys, Vantiger said. Officials expect to finish Phase II in early October, after which Malmstrom AFB’s Civil Engineering Division will release the property to the Government Services Administration for a public auction to adjacent landowners. The government saved $31.5 million on the two-phased project’s original cost estimate, which would’ve involved the implosion of headworks to eliminate the silos. “The New START Treaty allows for an alternate method of elimination via earth and gravel fill,” Vantiger said. “The expense and effect on the local land owners was significantly less with earth and gravel fill.”
Both phases composed the second chapter in a larger New START project which has seen the demolition of 50 Peacekeeper launch facilities at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. Workers will also dismantle three test silos at Vandenberg Air Force base in California under the treaty. The nation’s defense leaders decided to deactivate the 564th MS in accordance with the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, which stated: “To achieve the characteristics of the future joint force and build upon progress to date, the Department of Defense will reduce the number of deployed Minuteman III ballistic missiles from 500 to 450 beginning in FY07.”
