Star Staff Writer
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has rescheduled its public information meeting on the permit from tonight to Nov. 6 at 6:30 at the Anniston City Meeting Center.
About 150 storage bunkers at the Anniston Army Depot are used to hold obsolete chemical weapons. Since Aug. 8, the Army has been burning the weapons, which contain deadly nerve and blister agent, in a $1 billion incinerator.
The permit change would allow the Army to store waste from the incineration process, including ash, protective suits, and cleaning materials, in the bunkers.
“They will containerize that stuff and put them in the empty igloos that we permit,” said Tim Wright, environmental engineer for ADEM.
About 80 of the concrete igloos already were designated hazardous-waste storage sites, because they contain or contained M55 rockets filled with nerve agent.
“What was in the other ones was not considered a waste,” Wright said. “They were considered active munitions.”
The secondary waste eventually will be incinerated to make sure it does not have any chemical agent on it, and then buried in landfills, Wright said.
The permit change would come with more frequent inspections, in addition to those required by the Department of Defense.
“They may have done it quarterly or monthly; we may require it weekly or whatever,” Wright said.
The proposed permit change also addresses two areas that do not have to do with chemical weapons.
It would allow three container-handling buildings at the depot to be used for storing industrial hazardous waste. In addition, it would allow three igloos used for storing conventional munitions to be used to store munitions or munitions parts that have become hazardous waste because they can’t be used anymore.
In addition to storing munitions, the depot builds, repairs and refurbishes military vehicles.
ADEM also will hold a formal public hearing Dec. 4, and is accepting public comments on the permit change until Dec. 8.