Anniston Star
August 17, 2003

Officials look ahead to finish of incineration

By Nathan Solheim
Star Staff Writer
08-17-2003

BYNUM

As the chemical weapons incinerator gradually starts burning the 2,254 tons of munitions and agent at the Anniston Army Depot, preliminary plans already have been made for shutting it down when the weapons are gone.

The process for closing the Anniston Chemical Disposal Facility has been mapped out in the Army’s permit, but there is a possibility the incinerator could remain operational, disposing of other materials, according to incineration opponents and Army officials.

Also, the permit is open to modifications the Army could ask for as it moves toward finishing its chemical weapons disposal at the depot.

According to the 2000 National Defense Authorization Act, the secretary of the Army and the governor of Alabama could decide to use the incinerator for another disposal operation if the proper permits can be obtained from state regulators.

Mainly, workers would shut off the facility’s three incinerators, sanitize the facility and close the door. Other officials familiar with the operation say the igloos where chemical weapons are stored could either be torn down or modified to hold something else. Westinghouse and government employees associated with the incinerator would have no more work here.

The Army’s permit calls for closing the incinerator in a nine-month period, commencing shortly after the last chemical weapon is burned. The Army is at least seven years away from completing operations, making the earliest possible closure date sometime in 2010.

What happens after operations could have as much impact on Calhoun County’s image, economic development and public health as everything that has gone on thus far.

Burning the burner

This much is clear: What’s left of the incinerator eventually will be a hulking, hollow shell, the result of plans to have the incinerator incinerate itself.

“Kind of a Pac-Man approach,” said Army spokesman Mike Abrams.

The facility’s permit says the Army plans to use a mobile incinerator to burn the three incinerators at the disposal facility. The deactivation furnace, liquid incinerator and metal parts furnace all would be dismantled and fed into the mobile incinerator, or baked to rid components of any agent or hazardous materials.

In a broader sense, the Army’s plan calls for minimizing post-operational maintenance and to “control, minimize or eliminate” the escape of hazardous waste. Closure will be conducted “as expeditiously” as possible after operations cease and could take 270 days to one year, according to the permit.

The Army’s permit says procedures for the disposal of hazardous waste and the decontamination of the facility must be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

The Army will close the facility incrementally, starting with the incinerators and holding tank facilities, then moving on to storage rooms and other facilities.

Army officials also will dispose of contaminated equipment, structures and soil. It will decontaminate holding tank systems, then waste, then incinerator parts and then miscellaneous units.

Decontamination plans

The Army has plans to clean agent and hazardous waste from facilities and equipment, leaving only miniscule amounts of each to a standard called 3X. That standard calls for only .0001 milligrams of GB nerve agent per cubic meter. VX would be cleaned to .00001 milligrams per cubic liter. Mustard agent would be cleaned until there is .003 milligrams per cubic liter.

Areas or equipment cleaned to 3X would remain under government control, Abrams said.

Abrams also said the amount of agent left in a 3X cleanup standard equates to a drop of agent in a volume of space equal to 25 backyard swimming pools.

The Army also has plans to decontaminate some facilities or equipment to a point where it’s completely clean, a standard called 5X.

To arrive at the 3X level, chemical neutralization and cleaning solvents would be used, according to the permit. To arrive at 5X, the Army workers will subject an item to a thermal treatment of at least 1,000 degrees for at least 15 minutes.

The Army also would perform assessments of the soil around the incinerator; roadways and rights of way used to transport chemical weapons, loading and unloading areas.

“To tear down the facility would take extra years and hundreds of millions of dollars,” Abrams said.

Abrams said there are no current plans to bring any chemical material to the incinerator for disposal.

Critics of incineration are skeptical that the cleanup described in the permit will be what happens.

“I can bet you a million dollars what is in the permit now, based on the track record, there is a high probability in its entirety or vast areas that will be modified as well,” said Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a chief opponent of the Army’s incineration programs. “They’re playing it as they go,”

The finishing touches

The future of the igloos, which are owned by the Anniston Army Depot, remains unclear, according to depot officials. Those igloos have stored some of the most lethal chemical weapons for the past 40 years.

Joan Gustafson, an Anniston Army Depot spokeswoman, said current depot planners have made no decision on the issue.

The igloos would be decontaminated and cleaned during closure, however.

“The real estate and igloos belong to the depot, we just control the stockpile,” said Cathy Coleman, of the Chemical Materials Agency, the federal agency in charge of the Anniston incinerator.

For the 750 employees at the incinerator, the end of burning will be a time to find a new job.

Donavan Mager, a Westinghouse spokesman, said employees would either have to find another job in the area or move to another Army or Westinghouse project.

Less than 50 percent of the work force would be needed to shut down the incinerator, Mager said.

The closure of the Johnston Island incinerator will affect what happens with Anniston’s closure, Mager said. Workers there have been closing that facility, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, for months.

Officials say lessons from that effort would be incorporated here.

Details on the cost of closure should be included in the fiscal year 2004 budget, said Greg Mahall of the Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen, Md., the agency that oversees the chemical weapons disposal program.