Associated Press
September 2, 2003

Army's weapons incinerator in Alabama burns a portion of deadly sarin gas

The Associated Press
9/2/03 1:06 AM

ANNISTON, Ala. (AP) -- The Army destroyed about 530 gallons of sarin nerve agent in the first bulk burn of the lethal chemical at the Army's newest weapons incinerator, and the remaining 270 or so gallons are to be destroyed later this month, an Army spokesman said Monday.

The Army also acknowledged Monday that two sarin vapor leaks were detected shortly after the bulk burn began Sunday. Another leak, originally described as a false alarm when it happened almost two weeks ago, also was confirmed Monday, The Birmingham News reported.

In one of the Sunday leaks and in the 2-week-old case, the alarms detected sarin vapor in a room with no inhabitants, spokesman Mike Abrams told the News for a story Tuesday. He said he did not know the details of the third alarm, which took place sometime after the Army began burning the deadly sarin at 1:55 p.m. Sunday.

The Army began destroying Cold War-era nerve agent Aug. 9 but shut down the $1 billion incinerator Aug. 21 for two days to test the alarm system, saying it had trouble with alarms sounding. Since then, officials have said repeatedly that every alarm has been false.

Abrams said Monday one of the previous alarms actually had been positive, but that he mistakenly gave false information because he failed to ask the correct questions of officials at the incinerator.

"I did not intentionally mislead you, the public or anyone else," Abrams said. "I don't think the facility misled anyone."

Abrams said the Army did not notify the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency of the leaks because they did not escape through the exhaust stack. "Agent contamination is possible and sometimes expected," he said. "This is not unexpected."

The Army had expected the burn to consume the entire 800 gallons of sarin drained from rockets in about 10 or 11 hours. Instead, the burn took 151⁄2 hours and destroyed only about two-thirds of the chemical. Workers will be "fine-tuning" the incinerator during the next burn in about three weeks to make it more efficient, Abrams said.

"In no way would I characterize it as any failure or any problem," Abrams said. "This is what we have characterized as a shakedown period. There's no pressure on us to do any specific production."

Sarin, also known as "GB," is a nerve agent so deadly a drop on the skin can kill. The chemical was drained from 900 M55 rockets that have been chopped up and burned.

The 2-week-old leak occurred when the blades that chop up rockets were being cleaned, Abrams said. Water used to clean the blades was contaminated, triggering the alarm. Since then, the contractor running the incinerator, Westinghouse Anniston, has switched to a chlorine-based decontaminant to wash the blades and has had no further problems, Abrams said.

The sarin burning is the most dangerous part of the process. The burn marked the first time the Army has destroyed a large amount of nerve agent near a populated area. Emergency planners estimate that 35,000 people live within nine miles of the incinerator.

One of Sunday's leaks came as workers began to pump sarin into the liquid incinerator, Abrams said. An alarm sounded outside the furnace, within the closed liquid incinerator room.

"It was not a spill; it was not a failure of the system," Abrams said. "There was a little bit of vapor detected and operations were able to continue."

The incinerator will resume destroying rockets later this week, possibly as early as Tuesday, he said.

The Army is testing another incinerator at Pine Bluff Arsenal near Pine Bluff, Ark., a city of about 55,000, and is expected to begin burning chemical weapons there late next year. Its other incinerators are in more remote locations: in the Pacific Ocean and the Utah desert.