Anniston Star
May 15, 2003

County officials request backup for incinerator

By Nathan Solheim
Star Staff Writer
05-15-2003

The Calhoun County Commission has asked a high-ranking Army official to look into providing a contingency plan for continuing to destroy chemical weapons if the incinerator shuts down for any reason.

The request is not intended to be a precondition for starting the incinerator, commissioners say.

Army officials have been working since January on various safety provisions and state and federal requirements that must be met before they can begin destroying the 2,250 tons of chemical weapons stored at the Anniston Army Depot. They have not released a startup date yet.

Commissioners cited the recent shutdowns of the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah, which is home to the Tooele Chemical Agency Disposal Facility. The facility has an incinerator similar to the one at the Anniston Army Depot.

"It's only prudent for us to be thinking about having some kind of 'plan B' in the event we have problems with the incinerator that keep it from doing what it's designed to do," said Calhoun County Commissioner Robert Downing.

The request came in the form of a letter addressed to Claude Bolton, the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology. Commissioners signed the letter Tuesday.

Bolton has received the letter but as of late Wednesday had not had a chance to review the commission's request.

Mike Abrams, an Army spokesman at the Anniston incinerator, said he is not aware of any existing contingency plan.

"We have destroyed 16 million pounds of chemical weapons between Johnston Island and Tooele to date," Abrams said. "We know the basic technology that has been constructed and tested and we know the work force can accomplish the job. If there's a glitch, the facility has been over-designed for safety and we can resolve any challenge that comes up."

The letter asks that Mike Parker, director of the Army Chemical Materials Agency, which oversees the destruction of chemical weapons, develop a contingency plan in the event of a shutdown.

Commissioners asked Parker to identify an alternative form of chemical weapons destruction for the stockpile located at the Anniston Army Depot.

The letter asks for Army officials to look into using alternative technologies that have already been incorporated at other chemical weapons destruction facilities.

Included in the letter are requests for engineering and designs for a contingency plan as well as obtaining all state and federal permitting requirements for the deployment of the alternative. It also calls for a cost and schedule analysis for deployment of the contingency.

Examples of alternative technologies cited by Downing include neutralization of chemical agents, which was chosen as the method of destruction at the Bluegrass Army Depot in Richmond, Ky., and is being used at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

Commissioners pointed to the Tooele incinerator's problems as a chief cause for their request.

The Tooele incinerator has shut down three times since the facility began destroying VX nerve agent March 28. The incinerator previously has destroyed all of the Sarin stored there.

Tooele shut down April 9 after workers discovered that VX had mixed with water in a holding tank and caused a slow chemical reaction. The second shutdown happened April 20 for problems processing a decontamination solution used to neutralize nerve agent. Workers had too much of the solution on hand and had to stop until the solution could be destroyed. The third shutdown occurred after an alarm sounded May 3 because a valve that was not installed correctly allowed agent to leak into an observation corridor.

The Tooele incinerator also shut down for six months in 2000 after workers there were exposed to Sarin gas.

"Regardless of my personal feelings, the county commission is not sending this letter to delay the process of incineration," Downing said. "We're just pointing out problems and we think it would be smart to have an alternative plan in place for the destruction of these weapons in the event that the current plan doesn't work as its supposed to work."

Officials with the Tooele facility said no one was injured in any of the glitches and the facility has been operational since May 8.

Officials at Aberdeen Chemical Agent Disposal Facility also detected low levels of mustard agent during the neutralization procedures Monday. No one was hurt as a result of the incident, said officials there. The facility began operations April 23 and has been "ramping-up" its operations since them.