Assistant Metro Editor
While it was begun without much fanfare, the development marks a broadening of incinerator operations, until now limited to M-55 rockets filled with liquefied GB nerve agent, or sarin.
Gelled rockets are rockets in which the chemicals have solidified, or “gelled,” and can’t easily be drained out, as is done with the rockets filled with liquefied agent.
Burning gelled rockets has been criticized by anti-incineration groups because the facility’s deactivation furnace was not initially designed to destroy gelled rockets, though Army officials say it has been demonstrated that it can.
The Army has been destroying tons of Cold War-era chemical weapons stored in igloos at the Anniston Army Depot since the beginning of August, with a few disruptions created by equipment malfunctions or maintenance needs. The Army recently completed crucial tests on the destruction process for rockets with liquefied agent.
Six gelled rockets were destroyed Tuesday as Army officials began a shakedown period for those weapons. For the next month or so, workers will refine the process to destroy gelled rockets until it’s time for test burns, expected to take place in January.
Gelled rockets are more difficult to handle and dispose of in the incinerator’s deactivation furnace because the chemical sometimes does not drain out of the munitions entirely, said Mike Abrams, an Army spokesman.
Abrams said Tuesday’s operations went smoothly and without incident.
“Things went so well, we decided to do another one and possibly more,” Abrams said Tuesday morning.
Army officials previously had said they would begin by processing one rocket Monday and ramp up to about one per hour on subsequent days. The Army didn’t process Monday because they were re-heating the incinerator after maintenance performed over the Thanksgiving holiday.
About 30 percent of the depot’s GB stockpile of M-55 rockets are thought to be gelled, Abrams said. Gelled rocket processing also will be conducted separate from processing munitions with liquid agent, he said.
Anti-incineration groups have criticized the Army’s planned destruction process for gelled rockets and said the Army has backtracked on the number of rockets per hour they plan to destroy.
Craig Williams, of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, said the Army also must look much more closely at the smokestack emissions created by the destruction of the gelled rockets, which he says are more toxic than the Army wants to admit. Williams also said the Army has insufficient monitoring capability to determine whether toxic substances are emitted from the facility’s smokestack during the shakedown for gelled rockets.
“It’s well understood this approach contradicts the design of the facility,” Williams said. “The deactivation furnace was not designed for this function.”