Today, Johnston Atoll is a broad shallow platform of approximately 50 square miles with a marginal reef emergent only on the northwest. It rests on the core of an ancient volcanic island now buried under a limestone cap thousands of feet thick which resulted from 70 million years of reef growth on the slowly sinking island. Located 717 nautical miles southwest of Oahu, and 450 nm south of French Frigate Shoals in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands it is one of the most isolated atolls in the world. That operation is scheduled to end in 2004. The Johnston Atoll Chemical Disposal System will continue to be dismantled and dispose of secondary hazardous waste from the chemical weapons destruction. The last soldier left Johnston Island by ship on 17 August 2001, but some DOD contract civilians will remain. There were no incidents or accidents in the unit's 30-year history. The last of the chemical stockpile was destroyed in November 2000. Two thousand tons of nerve and blister agent were also destroyed. The two units destroyed more than 400,000 rockets, bombs, projectiles, mortars and mines. The unit safeguarded and disposed of deadly sarin and VX nerve agents and assisted the Johnston Atoll Chemical Disposal System, a contract civilian group assigned to destroy the chemical agents. Every soldier assigned to the island during the 30 years chemicals were stored there received special training in handling and emergency responses to chemical agents. The island, only 2½ miles long and a half-mile wide, was home to a military police company and chemical company, along with a headquarters unit. Department of Defense contractors run eight other sites throughout the United States. Johnston Island, 825 miles southwest of Hawaii, was the only site where soldiers were entirely responsible for the storage, security and transport of the deadly chemical agents. The unit's deactivation marked an end to 30 years of storing and handling chemical weapons stockpiles, and participating in the destruction of those weapons since 1990. Army Chemical Activity Pacific retired its colors on Johnston Island.
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