Anniston Star
August 23, 2003

False alarms at incinerator cause halt for assessment

By Nathan Solheim
Star Staff Writer
08-23-2003

Management at the chemical weapons incinerator halted destruction of munitions Friday to perform an unscheduled assessment of the facility’s agent monitoring system.

Army officials made the decision after several false alarms occurred at the incinerator over the past few days.

Army spokesman Mike Abrams said officials have not determined what caused the false alarms, but he said a lab analysis has ruled out nerve agent as the cause.

“There have been some alarms in areas under engineering controls, and all of them have proved to be false, there have been no positive alarms,” Abrams said.

No agent was released and no one was injured, he said.

Officials expect to complete the assessment today, and operations at the incinerator could resume once the source of the false alarms is determined.

The incinerator processed three M-55 rockets filled with GB nerve agent Friday, bringing to 350 the number of rockets destroyed since startup.

Various monitors in the incinerator facility detected interference and Abrams wouldn’t speculate on the cause of the false alarms.

“The system works and management is trying to fine-tune the system to eliminate the false alarms,” Abrams said. “We’re not changing things to mask real alarms, we’re fine-tuning them to make sure we are doing what’s smart.”