Anniston Star
September 18, 2003

Anniston has nation's only working chemical weapons disposal facility

By Nathan Solheim
Star Staff Writer
09-18-2003

Of the nation’s eight chemical disposal sites, the only operational facility is right here in Anniston.

Two chemical weapons neutralization facilities — in Newport, Ind., and Aberdeen, Md. — have had their operations delayed while Army officials work out problems either in their construction or their process.

Also, the chemical weapons incinerator in Tooele, Utah, shut down for a month beginning Sept. 1 to perform a scheduled maintenance operation, said Chuck Sprague, a spokesman at Deseret Chemical Depot. The Tooele incinerator is supposed to be operational Oct. 1.

The glitches at the two neutralization facilities do not constitute a system-wide problem with the technology, said Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky.

Williams’ organization is opposed to incineration as a means of destroying the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile, and favors neutralization.

“We’re still firmly of the belief that the fundamental components of the two processes, when compared to each other, have neutralization far, far more protective,” Williams said. “And, we don’t have to worry about mercury or PCB emissions because there’s not a gas stream that will be emitted.”

Previous trials have shown that minute amounts of industrial contaminants could be emitted from the Anniston Chemical Disposal Facility’s smokestacks.

But the two neutralization facilities have been stopped for different reasons.

Operations at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland have been shut down since Aug. 16, because smoke appeared from an overheated carbon filter.

The event triggered the facility’s smoke alarms, and workers were evacuated.

Officials there said a partial startup of the facility is scheduled for mid-October, with full operation set for mid-November.

Workers in Aberdeen also have had issues decontaminating one-ton containers filled with mustard agent.

Small amounts of agent remain on the container after decontamination, said Jeff Lindblad, a spokesman for the Chemical Materials Agency, which has oversight of the chemical weapons disposal process. Officials are left to determine how to clean the tank enough so monitors don’t detect agent before they can be recycled.

Lindblad added that the process of destroying agent is “going fabulously.”

At Aberdeen, chemical agent is neutralized using hot water and a caustic compound called sodium hydroxide — a key ingredient in drain cleaner, Lindblad said.

The resulting liquid is treated and tested for agent. When no agent is present, it is sent off to Deepwater, N.J., where it is treated with biological organisms.

In Newport, operations haven’t commenced yet, as Army officials work to shore up some safety precautions in the facility’s fire-suppression system.

Lindblad said a dry fire-suppression system was installed, but officials decided to install a wet sprinkler system instead.

No operations have occurred during the construction, Lindblad said, and startup of VX nerve agent disposal could start in April.

In the case of Newport, neutralization basically is the reverse of Aberdeen’s. More caustic sodium hydroxide is used to break down the VX nerve agent, and water is still used.

The resulting liquid will be treated several times to reduce the amount of agent, and then be taken to an industrial waste facility in Ohio for a final biological treatment.

“VX is a little more of a challenge,” Lindblad said. “We have to treat with the sodium hydroxide and we have to pre-treat before the bio.”

Still, Williams and other pro-neutralization groups speak of the process’s benefits.

Neutralization, Williams said, gives the Army greater control over the chemical agent, where an incinerator relies on hundreds of moving parts that could break down and take days or weeks to fix.

Williams also said the two incidents at the neutralization facility pale in comparison to earlier problems at Tooele’s incinerator, which has shut down several times and had a worker exposed to nerve agent.

“There are going to be glitches in any approach,” Williams said. “No approach will be perfect, but we do believe when compared, the fundamental advantage goes to neutralization.”

Mike Abrams, an Army spokesman at the Anniston Chemical Disposal Facility, said the Army is committed to safety no matter the technology used to destroy munitions, but that some facilities are behind Anniston in terms of operations.

“If we look strictly at the safety issue, the risk is in storage,” Abrams said. “Looking at that, we are doing something about our storage risk, and the other sites are still in the very earliest stages of development; and in Maryland and Indiana, they are struggling with the challenges new technologies often present.”