Anniston Star
August 13, 2003

Incinerator will start up again today

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
08-13-2003

BYNUM

The chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot was shut down for the second day in a row Tuesday, for the second maintenance problem since the facility started burning live weapons Saturday.

The incidents were not emergencies, a spokesman for the facility said. They did not involve agent releases, and so did not require sirens, gas masks, or a worker evacuation.

The incinerator should be up and running again today, said Mike Abrams, spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. About 200 rockets are awaiting processing in the facility.

"While from the public relations standpoint it is unfortunate that these two issues took place thus far this week, it reinforces the fact that we will not operate unless we are 100 percent sure that we can operate safely," Abrams said.

Monday night, workers discovered a problem with the motor on the cooling system for the facility's pollution abatement system" the charcoal filter banks that remove contamination from the exhaust.

Abrams called the system "our final protection against the possibility of an agent release in the stacks" such as took place at a Utah facility in 2000.

If the filtration system gets too hot, "the filters will not be able to function properly," Abrams said. He did not know whether there would be any risk of fire under those conditions.

Monday morning, before operations began for the day, workers doing a maintenance check had discovered a small hydraulic fluid leak.

The leak was from a line connecting to a blade that cuts up the rockets before they are dropped into a furnace.

"Both maintenance issues have been resolved," Abrams said.

The area where workers fixed the hydraulic leak was not contaminated with nerve agent, Abrams said. Workers had to don some protective clothing as a precaution, because nerve agent has been introduced into the facility. But the gear consisted of rubber suits and masks, not full-scale sealed protective gear, he said.

The incinerator began operations Saturday, after several years of planning and delays. It processed 10 M55 rockets filled with nerve agent over the weekend. Ninety had been transported from concrete storage bunkers to the incinerator.

Abrams said that four more containers of rockets, or a total of 120, were brought to the facility Monday afternoon.

"So we do have a number of M55 rockets up there pending treatment and disposal," he said.

Today, after a "pre-operational check," the facility could process 15 rockets or possibly more, he said.

"At this point we do not have a schedule," he said. "At this point we are working to make sure that all of our crews are equally proficient and confident in themselves, the equipment and the facility."

Construction of the controversial incinerator began in 1997 and finished in 2001.

The equipment has been in use since, in tests and trial burns, Abrams said.

Over the next several years, the Army plans to burn the 2,253 tons of nerve and mustard agent stored at the depot since the 1960s.