Star Staff Writer
The study, released Wednesday, says that the Army should take steps to prove that incinerating 9.2 gelled rockets an hour is safe for the public.
At another chemical weapons incinerator, in Tooele, Utah, the Army was limited to about one gelled rocket an hour.
Speeding up the destruction process, the report says, will reduce risk to the public by shrinking the weapons stockpile faster and cutting the duration of incinerator operations.
“Because there is a small chance that stored sarin- and VX-filled rockets might self-ignite at any time and release toxic agents and metals, these rockets need to be destroyed as soon as possible,” said James F. Mathis, the chair of the committee that reviewed the Army’s plan.
In gelled M55 rockets, the GB nerve agent, or sarin, has thickened and can’t be drained out. That makes the weapons more difficult to destroy.
The report says GB rockets are more dangerous to store because sarin can spread farther than other chemicals in an accident. But it says there is still little danger from the stockpile.
“There doesn’t appear to be any valid reason for this other than the continued storage risk argument,” said Craig Williams, executive director of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, which opposes incineration. “That does not seem to be an adequate reason for launching an experimental operation in the middle of a populated area.”
Of the eight chemical weapons stockpiles around the United States, Anniston has the most people living near it, the report points out.
The incinerator was built to destroy the 2,253 tons of chemical weapons stored at the Anniston Army Depot. The plant began live operations Aug. 8, burning ungelled sarin-filled M55 rockets.
An estimated 20 percent of the M55 rockets in the Anniston stockpile are gelled, according to the report.
The study also urges the Army to do more emissions monitoring, to better involve the community, and to finish a health-risk assessment, which looks at exposure to toxic emissions such as metals and dioxins, “as soon as feasible.”
Normally, the facility mechanically punctures the rockets, sucks out the sarin, which is burned separately, and cuts the weapons up to be incinerated.
The gelled rockets skip the draining process. The gel is cut up with the rocket and dropped into the furnace.
In Tooele, Utah, the Army decided that a safe rate for gelled rockets was one per hour.
The Army now says it can safely burn 34 gelled rockets an hour.
The National Research Council called that rate “very optimistic” given problems that were seen in Utah.
Nine seems appropriate, the council said, if the Army can back up its calculations and tests with substitute materials with live data.
The Army hopes to go even beyond nine rockets an hour.
“In discussions with ADEM, the more likely rate is no more than 14 per hour,” said Mike Abrams, spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.
Abrams said the report validated the effectiveness of operations at the facility.
“I think it does affirm what we’ve been testifying to the court of public opinion all along …” Abrams said. “… continued storage is the real risk in this community.”
The incinerator was running again this week, after a two-week shutdown because of a conveyor belt problem. Nearly 5,200 rockets have been destroyed since August.
The Army has agreed not to deliberately feed any gelled rockets into the incinerator until local schools have protective equipment in place. Workers may start on gelled munitions in December, Abrams said.
Williams argued that the rate should be kept at one rocket per hour. Doing so would not measurably slow down operations.
“So why push it?” Williams said. “… why not stick to what you’ve already done and not try to increase it merely for the sake of eliminating a class of weapons that have already been identified as a low risk factor?”
The National Research Council is part of the National Academy of Sciences, a private, non-profit institution that was chartered by Congress and provides science advice to the government.