Anniston Star, October 23, 2002

Incinerator start now set for early 2003

By Jason Landers
Star Staff Writer
10-23-2002

The Army's chemical weapons incinerator in Anniston is scheduled to start destroying sarin nerve agent early next year - barring political intervention.

An Army memorandum dated Oct. 16 suggests GB agent operations in Anniston will begin
sometime between January and March.

The schedule change was mentioned in a status report made public Tuesday by Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization, the branch of the Army tasked with destroying the nation's aging chemical weapons stockpile.

There are 2,254 tons of sarin, VX and mustard agent slated for destruction at the Anniston Army Depot. These deadly reminders of The Cold War are stored in rockets, projectiles, land mines, mortars and ton containers, housed safely for now in earthen covered concrete bunkers.

The latest schedule change marks the most recent setback for a billion-dollar project that has a growing history of delays.

Army officials initially said they would start destroying nerve agent by this summer.

Regulatory obstacles pushed back the startup to September. Then the incinerator hit its biggest snag: a technicality.

State environmental regulators balked at methods the Army used to analyze surrogate tests of a key furnace that will burn liquid nerve and blister agent.

Regulators at the Alabama Department of Environmental Management ordered the Army to redo a portion of the test. The Army grudgingly complied, noting that doing so likely would delay the startup further.

With results from that retest pending, the Army now is on track to clear all remaining regulatory hurdles by the end of the year, said Army incinerator spokesman Mike Abrams.

"Now we do see the light at the end of the tunnel," Abrams said.

But politics could cast a shadow over the new startup, a firm date for which has not been released.

"We know that our facility will safely destroy the risk of the weapons that now exist," Abrams said. "But there are some that are tying our operation to various preparedness issues in the community."

Abrams concedes that external influences could create what he described as an "artificial delay." Factors leading to a delay might include waiting until schools are airtight and protected fully against the unlikely release of chemical agent or until emergency responders are equipped with the highest level protective gear.

The Anniston facility, however, does not have a monopoly on setbacks.

Delays, brought about by what the Army describes as a commitment to safety, plague many of thesites where the nation's chemical weapons will be destroyed. Below is a status list of other sites in the chemical demilitarization program as provided by PMCD.

· Aberdeen (Md.) - The Army will neutralize 1,621 tons of mustard agent that is stored in toncontainers. Overall construction of the neutralization facility is 83 percent complete and agent operations are expected to begin March 3, 2003. The Army anticipates destroying the mustard by Sept. 30, 2003 and cleaning out the contaminated ton containers by Sept. 30, 2004.

· Blue Grass (Ky.) - The Army will destroy 523 tons of sarin, VX and mustard contained in
rockets and projectiles. A method for destroying the agent has not been chosen. A draft
Environmental Impact Statement is expected in December. Under Secretary of Defense PeteAldridge will decide, based on that EIS, whether the Army uses incineration or neutralization to destroy the stockpile.

· Johnston Atoll (Pacific Ocean) - The Army has destroyed all 1,134 tons of chemical agent storedhere. The facility met with recent delays while processing waste from the destruction process. On Aug. 12, a monitor detected VX in a one-ton container after it was processed through the metal parts furnace. The Army still is investigating the incident. The metal furnace, which temporarily was shut down, is operational again, but is burning items at a much slower rate, said Greg Mahall, spokesman for PMCD. Final closure of the facility is expected to be in January 2004.

· Newport (Ind.) - The Army will neutralize 1,269 tons of VX stored in ton containers.
Construction of the neutralization facility is 59 percent complete. Mahall said the facility is
encountering problems with supercritical water oxidation, which is necessary as a secondary
treatment of neutralized agent. Until those problems are resolved, he said, it is difficult to destroy the agent to meet international treaty requirements. Agent destruction is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2003 and be completed within a year of the startup. On Oct. 9, the site celebrated a year without a lost-time accident.

· Pine Bluff (Ark.) - The Army will destroy 3,850 tons of sarin, VX and mustard stored in rockets, land mines, and ton containers. Construction of the incineration facility is 98 percent complete and agent operations are scheduled to begin in the spring of 2003. The facility is behind Anniston in its testing phase.

· Tooele (Utah) - The Army has already destroyed 6,050 tons of sarin - all of the GB agent stored at this site - and will incinerate 7,567 tons of VX and mustard stored in rockets, projectiles, spray tanks, land mines, mortars, and ton containers. VX agent operations are expected to start later this year and end by the summer of 2003. The changeover from destroying GB to destruction of VX was halted July 15 after workers were exposed to nerve agent. While the changeover work has resumed, Mahall said, VX destruction won't start until an investigation finds that corrective actions are in place to prevent future exposure.

· Umatilla (Oregon) - The Army will incinerate 3,717 tons of sarin, VX, and mustard agent stored in rockets, bombs, spray tanks, land mines and ton containers. Agent operations are expected to begin in September 2003. The site is operating under a temporary stop order by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality that prevents it from further testing its liquid furnace. During mini-surrogate burns using the furnace, the carcinogens mercury, chromium, arsenic and other heavy metals were released.

The Oregon facility is a mirror of the Anniston and Arkansas sites, Army officials said. Army incinerator spokeswoman Mary Binder said the Army still is investigating the cause of the failed tests. She said Oregon environmental regulations typically are more stringent than those at the other sites, which may play a part in the failing grade. "There are some requirements that we fall under that are not at the other sites," she said.

Opponents of incineration in Oregon have filed a lawsuit challenging the Army's permit to build and operate the Umatilla incinerator. That trial begins today.