Tue, Mar. 9, 2004
Activists
call for additional monitoring at chem sites
Wednesday,
Apr 21, 2004
By Alison Vekshin
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Safety activists on Tuesday called on the U.S. Army to install
additional monitoring equipment to improve detection of chemical agent leaks
at the Pine Bluff Arsenal and seven other chemical weapons storage sites.
Representatives of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, an umbrella organization
that includes Pine Bluff for Safe Disposal, called for the government to
install a system they said is capable of confirming airborne chemical agents
within 20 seconds of a leak.
The warning network would supplement systems already in place that the Army
said can detect leaks within storage units in minutes, and that analyze air
samples at the perimeter of chemical weapons facilities every 12 hours.
"Workers and nearby community members should not have to wonder whether
or not chemical agents are being released," said Evelyn Yates, head of Pine
Bluff for Safe Disposal. "We want to be able to have reliable air-analysis
data."
The advanced monitoring system would cost about $25 million, Craig Williams,
director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, said in a conference call
with reporters.
Williams said the cost would amount to a fraction of the $25 billion Army
chemical weapons disposal program.
"If chemical agent was released this minute at any of the sites, it could
take up to 12 hours before the community knew about it," Williams said. "That
is simply not reasonable and we demand better."
The activist groups want the Army to install Fourier-transform infrared
spectrometers (FTIR), which use an infrared laser to identify chemical molecules
or rule out biological molecules "in about a minute," according to the Army.
The system has been deployed in Iraq.
An Army representative said a system that can detect chemical agents within
20 seconds does not exist.
"At a disposal facility, we're looking for levels that an unprotected worker
could be exposed to a certain level without harmful effects," said Marilyn
Daughdrill, spokeswoman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, which manages
chemical weapons storage and destruction.
"If it could be demonstrated that it is seeing the levels that we need to
see, I think the Army would take a very hard look at that technology," she
said.
Currently, the Army has two detection systems in place. The first are located
within chemical facilities themselves and can detect leaking agents within
minutes, Daughdrill said.
A second system is used at site perimeters. It collects an air sample for
12 hours before that sample is analyzed for agent. That system is intended
for a historical record and not as an early notification system, Daughdrill
explained.
Daughdrill said the Army continues to track and evaluate emerging technologies.
"There is not a system to change to at this point that would give us the
same level of protection," Daughdrill said.
The activists' request comes on the heels of reports that the Arkansas Department
of Environmental Quality levied fines against the Pine Bluff Arsenal for leak-related
and monitoring-related violations.
The state agency levied $22,389 in fines in November and January against
the U.S. Army and the Washington Group International, the company contracted
to destroy the arsenal's chemical weapons, for three permit violations discovered
last year.
The violations dealt with two monitoring devices that did not work during
test burns at two furnaces at the facility. The other involved a sodium hydroxide
leak from a valve at the facility into Phillips Creek, which empties into
wetlands.
Sodium hydroxide is a highly corrosive chemical compound more commonly known
as caustic soda or lye. The compound generates heat when interacting with
water, or flammable hydrogen gas when reacting to metals.
The arsenal is one of eight sites where the nation's chemical weapons stockpiles
will be destroyed in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international
treaty.
Under the treaty, the U.S. government is required to destroy its entire
stockpile by 2007. The government has received a tentative extension for
the completion of the stockpile destruction to the year 2012.
The arsenal is scheduled to begin incinerating its stockpile as early as
July. It houses 12 percent of the government's stockpile, which includes mustard
gas, a blister agent, and the nerve agents VX and sarin.
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