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Officials at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (ANCDF) expect to restart chemical weapons disposal operations this afternoon or Monday.
Artillery shells carrying VX nerve agent were moved to the facility Friday in anticipation that they would be incinerated today, according to the Army's public information officer for the facility, Michael Abrams.
"It's a little less predicable than a shuttle launch," Abrams said Saturday. "We think that everything will be ready and the furnace will be hot and ready to go (this afternoon), but something might come up."
The 155 mm artillery shells are 27 inches long and weigh approximately 100 pounds.
"If for some reason they don't start (today), the likelihood will be Monday," Abrams said.
During normal operations, the facility operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with four crews working 12-hour shifts.
From July through March, workers at the facility processed VX-armed rockets. They destroyed 35,662 of the weapons by March 8, when the last such rocket was destroyed. Earlier, the facility destroyed 42,762 M55 rockets armed with sarin, a different nerve agent, also known as GB.
The facility has been shut down since March while workers decontaminated the incinerator and installed equipment to handle the artillery shells.
Once the artillery shells are destroyed, the workers will turn to destruction of VX-armed land mines.
All of Anniston's VX is expected to be gone by the end of 2008, Abrams has said. Workers then will begin destroying mustard blister agent, expected to take another three years.
If artillery shells are destroyed today, the operation likely will begin between 1 and 3 p.m.
"I won't know until they actually start the furnace," Abrams said.
