| Weapons processing stopped at the Anniston
Chemical Agent Disposal Facility after a brief loss of power Thursday night.
Destruction of 105-mm rounds, the final sarin-filled rounds
at the Anniston Army Depot, began July 23. Through Wednesday, crews had destroyed
13 105-mm shells and 42 gallons of sarin at the facility as a part of deliberately
slow start to destruction of those shells.
The facility suffered a power loss Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Thursday,
while crews were performing maintenance on the deactivation furnace. Weapons
were not being processed at the time.
A battery system in the facility immediately took over the
plant’s critical functions, said Tim Garrett, the Army project site manager,
but backup generators, which should have picked up the power load from the
battery system, did not come on-line.
The battery system supported the facility until power was
restored at 7:11 p.m. Neither the community nor personnel were at risk. Garrett
said officials will halt processing until they determine the reason for the
power loss and the failure of the backup generators to pick up the power
load from the battery.
“We’re looking at data recorders that we have in the system,”
he said. “At the time, there were a number of significant lightning strikes
at the plant. (Analysis) will take a little bit of time.”
The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Umatilla,
Ore., destroyed 1,640 sarin-filled rockets and 21,045 pounds of sarin between
July 21 and Wednesday. To date the facility has destroyed 24,366 rockets
and 251,822 pounds of agent.
Processing has stopped at the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal
Facility while crews analyze processing and the flammability of hydrolysate,
a byproduct created by the chemical neutralization of VX at the facility.
Crews took samples from byproduct about two weeks ago to test the flashpoint
of the byproduct.
The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Tooele, Utah,
is undergoing a retooling process to begin the destruction of blister agent
stockpiled at the Deseret Army Depot. Destruction of the blister stockpile
is scheduled to begin next spring.
Numbers from the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility
in Pine Bluff, Ark., were unavailable Friday. The facility reported a trace
amount of chemical agent vapor in a storage igloo Thursday. The leak was isolated,
and officials said there was no release of vapor into the atmosphere outside.
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