Anniston Star
August 14, 2002

Army: Nerve agent rockets expected burn rate lowered

By Matthew Creamer
Star Staff Writer

The chemical weapons incinerator will attempt to burn rockets with gelled nerve agent at the rate of nine per hour, an Army official said Tuesday.

With the announcement, the Army effectively backs away from the formerly stated goal of burning at more than three times that rate.

Moreover, state environmental regulators will require the furnace system that will burn these
rockets to meet the same standards as the one that destroys liquid agent drained from rockets.

The two announcements came at a public meeting, hosted by the Alabama Department of
Environmental Management, at which Army and department officials answered questions about plans to incinerate gelled rockets.

A number of local residents and officials have challenged the plans in recent months, saying they violate scientific recommendations for the incineration of chemical weapons. Many were especially incensed that the gelled rockets, which can't have their agent removed and destroyed in a separate furnace, would be burned at a much higher rate than they were in Tooele, Utah.

"At this point, it's our position that it's unlikely we would proceed past nine (gelled rockets per hour)," said Tim Garrett, Army project manager at the incinerator.

David Christian, an Anniston architect, asked, "Then why are you asking for a permit modification for 34 an hour?"

Garrett replied that the higher figure in a permit modification requested from ADEM is the result of engineering study that served as the basis for the request. "I don't ever foresee us having a realistic chance of getting to 34," he said.

Steve Cobb, chief of ADEM's hazardous waste branch, said the destruction and removal efficiency of the furnace that was designed to handle sheared rocket parts but that is now expected to burn gelled agent will be the same as the liquid agent incinerator. This means that both will have to destroy 99.9999 percent of the agent.

Attended by about 50 people, the meeting was less contentious than one last week to discuss other permit modifications, although "chop and drop," as the gelled rocket plans have been called, has drawn much criticism.

Whereas the previous meeting was often emotional and digressive, Tuesday's meeting stuck to the technical issue at hand, with often-lengthy lines of questioning.

The agent trial burns, expected to begin late this year, will determine the rate at which the Army can burn the weapons. The burns will be monitored by ADEM.