Anniston Star
February 28, 2003

Hold on weapons incineration in Utah will end next week

By Jason Landers
Star Staff Writer
02-29-2003

The Army will resume burning chemical weapons in Utah sometime next week, the director of the newly formed Chemical Materials Agency said.

Michael Parker, interim head of the provisional Army agency, said a seven-month hold on incinerating chemical weapons at the Army's Tooele, Utah, disposal facility likely would end next week.

The startup of the Anniston chemical weapons incinerator has dropped in the pecking order. But Parker remains optimistic the facility, which was scheduled to start burning weapons in January, will start after several preparedness issues and legal requirements are resolved.

Weapons disposal was halted in Utah last summer after two maintenance workers were exposed to sarin nerve agent. Neither worker was seriously injured, nor was the public or the environment ever at risk from a nerve agent release.

Paperwork is the only remaining holdup for resuming the burns, said Tooele facility spokesman Chuck Sprague.

The stockpile in Utah once held 42 percent of the nation's aging chemical weapons. That amount was significantly cut with the destruction of the sarin portion, which was burned shortly before the accident involving the workers occurred.

When operations resume next week, the facility will destroy M-55 rockets filled with the deadly nerve agent VX.

Sprague said the Army projects it will destroy the entire VX arsenal in as little as 13 months - reducing the stockpile to the blister agents mustard and lewisite.

Parker said the next facility to go online is a neutralization plant in Aberdeen, Md., which will destroy containers of mustard agent in early March, said Jeff Lyndblad, a spokesman for the Aberdeen facility.

Maryland environmental regulators already have certified the facility to begin operations. Lyndblad said employees are verifying the systems associated with the nation's first full-fledged chemical weapons neutralization facility. They also are drilling heavily for an emergency, he said.

The byproduct of the neutralized material will be trucked to Deepwater, N.J., where it will be treated at the DuPont Chamber Works and ultimately discharged in nearby waterways.

The facility will destroy 12 tons of agent a day, Lyndblad said, a pace that will rid Maryland of its mustard stockpile within six months.

"And shortly behind that is anticipated to be Anniston," Parker said, stressing the Army must resolve several community preparedness issues first.

"The Anniston management team shares the leadership's optimism, and we too look forward to the start of operations in the near future," said facility spokesman Mike Abrams. "Ever present in our mind is the risk this community faces due to the stockpile and storage. Our commitment is to safely use the incinerator to rid the stockpile once and for all."

Anniston holds slightly more than 7 percent of the nation's original chemical weapons stockpile, or about 2,254 tons of nerve and blister agent.

Legal hurdles standing in the way of startup should be cleared "almost any day now," Abrams said. The facility is waiting on the state to issue a trial burn permit. Following this, the Army must give Congress 30 days notice before beginning operations.

Calhoun County officials said the outstanding community preparedness issues should be resolved by October, if not sooner.

Once given the green light, the Anniston facility will begin destroying sarin-filled M-55 rockets, Abrams said.

Other facilities in line for startup are Newport, Ind., where neutralization is expected to begin in October; Umatilla, Ore., where incineration is expected to begin by August; and Pine Bluff, Ark., where the incinerator could be ready by spring of 2004.

Operations likely would not be delayed if war breaks out with Iraq, Parker said. He said security at the installations was increased following Sept. 11, 2001, and the added layers of security would sufficiently keep the stockpiles and demilitarization operations safe.