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Local
News
Incinerator
operator faces possible fines for citations
By Ben Cunningham
Assistant Metro Editor
04-20-2007
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The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has cited
Anniston's chemical weapons incinerator for 12 violations of its
operating permits and ADEM rules, a move that could bring fines for the
contractor that operates the plant.
Officials with ADEM, the Army and Westinghouse Anniston, the contractor, hesitated to call the infractions "minor," saying all violations are serious. But all said no one's health was threatened by the mistakes, all of which took place in late 2006. "They're all serious," said Tim Garrett, the Army's project site manager at the Anniston Chemical Demilitarization Facility, or ANCDF. "We want to strive for perfection." The Army and Westinghouse found and reported 10 of the 12 violations to ADEM on their own. Garrett said workers would have discovered and reported the other two items, but ADEM officials, who monitor the plant at all times, found them first. Workers corrected all the errors, he said, in some cases immediately. Some involved improperly used equipment, inadequate labeling of hazardous waste and destruction of waste that did not follow rules to the letter. "We are in the process of assessing the situation and deciding what the most appropriate enforcement action would be," said ADEM spokesman Jerome Hand. That could include fines, he said. ADEM notified incinerator officials it was considering the matter in a letter dated April 12. Incinerator officials revealed the violations and the letter to The Star in a meeting with editors Wednesday. The letter details the 12 violations, in two groups of five violations that incinerator officials reported to ADEM monitors, plus two violations observed by ADEM. The first group of five are violations of a section of the incinerator's hazardous-waste permit titled "Other Noncompliance." They include a monitoring device outside the plant - one of 15 - found attached to the wrong line, which would have kept the monitor from detecting VX nerve agent in the event of a major accident; two hazardous-waste containers left open and lacking the proper labels; rockets stored for longer than allowed in a secure area; another hazardous-waste bin left open; and four trays of empty steel weapons containers fed into the furnace more quickly than rules allowed. The next group of five violations are connected to another section of the permit, titled "Proper Operation and Maintenance." Four of the citations, dealing with laboratory procedures, refer to specific sections of the permit without describing the violations. They include two violations of one rule, five violations of a second rule, three violations of a third rule and one violation of a fourth. Garrett said some of the violations dealt with incorrect entries in logbooks and equipment handled improperly. The fifth violation involved workers placing the wrong lids on drums used to collect hazardous waste from a furnace. Two other violations were spotted by ADEM inspectors. One involved cleaning solution used to decontaminate equipment that might have come in contact with nerve agent. The solution, like the chemical weapons, also is incinerated, but in a secondary furnace. The primary furnace used for burning nerve agent isn't used for that, Garrett said, but permits require when doing any processing in either furnace that the primary furnace be burning at a certain temperature. When some of the solution was burning in the secondary furnace, the primary furnace was spotted by the ADEM inspector burning below the required temperature, Garrett said. The other violation ADEM saw involved warning signs for containers of hazardous waste. Every bin is required to be marked with signs labeling it as hazardous waste. Garrett said workers dealing with a group of the bins ran out of signs, and so left bins in the center of the group unmarked while those on the outer edge of the group were correctly labeled. Bob Love, Westinghouse's manager at the site, said work crews have been briefed on the errors. In some cases, the frequency of workers' training has been increased to make sure they're familiar with the rules. In some cases, Love and Garrett said, workers had improvised temporary solutions to short-term problems but had fallen short of the permits' requirements. For example, they put the wrong lids on hazardous waste bins when the proper lids were unavailable, rather than leave them without lids. "What we did was probably OK, but it's not OK in the permit, so ADEM was right to write us up for it," Love said. In another case, when destruction was halted because of equipment problems, workers left rockets in a blast-protected room where they are unpacked, rather than pack them back up and move them elsewhere, Garrett said. Handling the rockets again would have been more dangerous, he said. Incinerator officials may negotiate with ADEM to have that guideline changed. The officials now are drafting a response to ADEM's letter, which the agency will use in deciding whether to order a fine. Hand said ADEM will consider the incinerator's history of violations and other factors in determining whether to issue an order and any fines. ADEM fined Westinghouse $7,500 in August 2004 for 10 violations. The incinerator now is in a changeover mode, after workers destroyed the last of the Anniston Army Depot's VX-armed M55 rockets. After cleaning and swapping out equipment and conducting training, officials expect to begin destroying VX-armed 155-mm projectiles later this summer.
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Ben Cunningham is business editor and assistant metro editor for The Star. |
Contact Ben Cunningham
| Phone:
Fax: E-mail: |
256-235-3543
256-241-1991 bcunningham@annistonstar.com |