Anniston Star
August 27, 2002

New trial burns likely to delay incinerator startup

By Matthew Creamer
Star Staff Writer

A repeat of some trial burns ordered by state environmental regulators would likely cause a
"significant" schedule delay for the chemical weapons incinerator, officials said Monday.

Yet the officials plan to challenge the Alabama Department of Environmental Management's ruling and are for now holding tight to an Oct. 15 startup date - even as they are preparing to redo tests on surrogate materials that would almost certainly make the date an impossibility. They remain optimistic that, even with additional test runs, they could begin to test the incinerator on nerve agent-filled rockets before year's end.

Moreover, the incinerator leadership defended the results of a series of March tests that ADEM says failed to meet its standards. This development was first reported in Saturday's Anniston Star.

The Army is planning to draft a response to the ADEM notice of deficiency, but must wait for the entire notice to arrive by mail. Only a two-page cover letter broadly outlining the problems has been sent to the Army. The letter says that certain lab analytical data "were inconclusive" for low-temperature runs designed to test the facility's ability to burn compounds that are harder to destroy than nerve agent.

"We still believe our data are technically accurate," said Army project manager Tim Garrett. "This is a procedural issue we believe is correct."

A representative for Air Toxics Ltd., the Folsom, Calif.-based laboratory that analyzed the air sampling, seconded this.

"Air Toxics stands behind the data produced for this trial run," said Guy Graening, business development manager for the lab. "We followed all protocols agreed upon contractually beforehand."

The surrogate trial burns are an important hurdle the Army must clear before it can begin to burn actual nerve agent. Two sets of burns have been completed. The first set, which is now being questioned by ADEM, was on the liquid agent incinerator; the second was on the deactivation furnace system, which will burn rocket casings and explosives as well as fully loaded gelled rockets.

Garrett said he does not expect the protocol that is now at issue to figure in ADEM's evaluation of the second series of tests because the protocol was not used.

ADEM declined to comment further on the decision or on the Army rebuttal. "Our letter speaks for itself," said Steven Cobb, chief of the hazardous waste branch.

The letter, signed by ADEM land division chief Gerald Hardy, is specific in its criticism of the incinerator's performance during the tests.

It states that the facility was successful in its high-temperature runs, adding, "the need to conduct another abbreviated surrogate trial burn does not necessarily reflect a performance concern with incineration. Rather, the Department has identified a quality control deficiency in a laboratory test that compromised the reliability of the test result.