Test burns start at Pine Bluff Arsenal
The Associated Press
11/3/03 5:30 PM
PINE BLUFF, Ark. (AP) -- Test burns at a chemical weapons incinerator at the Pine Bluff Arsenal began Monday afternoon.
The arsenal is not using actual chemical weapons in the testing. Instead, the arsenal is using chemical compounds that officials say are more difficult to destroy than chemical weapons and designed to show whether the furnace is working properly.
Testing that started Monday involves the second of three incinerators. If the arsenal remains on schedule, burning of actual chemical weapons could begin in April.
The testing is geared to determine whether the thousands of switches, valves and other parts that run the furnace are operating properly.
Two test compounds -- monochlorobenzene (MCB) and hexachloroethane (HCE) -- were chosen for burning because they are thermally and chemically stable compounds that are more difficult to destroy than the actual stockpiled chemical agent, the arsenal said. Every hour for four hours Monday, 912 pounds of the mixture was fed into the incinerator, officials said.
The same test will be repeated three more times.
"These tests are based on guidance developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which calls for removal of a minimum of 99.9999 percent of all toxic materials from air emissions ... prior to release into the environment," said Ron Garner, project manager for the Washington Demilitarization Co., the contractor overseeing the process.
The deactivation furnace will burn off remaining GB or VX nerve agent from pieces of rockets and land mines that have already been drained.
A surrogate trial burn of the first furnace, called the liquid furnace, was completed in early September. Liquid weapons agent from the rockets, mines and 1-ton storage would be drained into the liquid furnace for destruction.
The arsenal holds 12 percent of the nation's chemical weapons stockpile. The United States is destroying the weapons in accordance with an international treaty.