Anniston Star
December 4, 2002

Report: Incineration should proceed quickly

By Jason Landers
Star Staff Writer
12-04-2002

Incineration of chemical weapons in Anniston, Arkansas and Oregon should proceed "as quickly as possible," according to a recommendation issued Tuesday in a report by an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

The 134-page report sheds new light on disturbing chemical weapons incidents at two federal facilities that have incinerated aging nerve and blister agents. More importantly, it concludes that, despite these "unanticipated" events, incineration is safe and feasible.

Conducted by an investigative committee of the National Research Council, the report looked at 81 separate incidents - all of them unanticipated and potentially dangerous - at the Army's incinerators on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and Tooele, Utah. Only seven of the reported events were evaluated, and an additional six events that the Calhoun County Commission requested the committee look at were not mentioned in the report.

Johnston Atoll and Tooele are forerunners of the facilities in Anniston, Arkansas and Oregon (third-generation sister plants that the committee said exemplify a significant improvement from the two studied).

Anniston's chemical weapons incinerator is next in line to start up, with burning of live agent anticipated to start at the first of 2003.

In some instances cited by the committee, workers at Johnston Atoll and Tooele risked exposure in areas of the facilities that were supposed to be agent-free. In others, human error led to real or potential worker exposure. In still other cases, agent escaped the facilities in minute amounts that posed no risk to surrounding communities.

Destroying chemical weapons is a task fraught with danger, the committee's report concedes, but it said the danger of continued storage outweighs the inherent risk posed by incineration.

"The chemical incineration plants are virtual fortresses built to withstand the consequences of accidents, and, to date, releases of chemical agent from these facilities have been rare, isolated events," a summary of the report reads. It later qualifies the statement by adding,

"There will be future chemical events, and serious consequences to both plant personnel and surrounding communities cannot be ruled out."

New risk assessments conducted by the Army show that continued storage of the weapons poses the greatest risk, the report said. Anniston has more than 2,200 tons of VX and sarin nerve agent and mustard agent housed in its back yard in earth-covered concrete igloos.

Terrorists and saboteurs (a credible threat in the world of post-Sept. 11, 2001) likely would target storage areas, rather than incinerators that hold relatively small amounts of agent, the report said.

A reaffirmation of previous NRC studies, the latest report echoes findings that incineration safely can destroy chemical weapons stored in Anniston, Arkansas and Oregon.

Incineration at these sites is feasible, the report says, "if their management is diligent in setting and enforcing rigorous operational procedures, in providing comprehensive training, in establishing strong safety culture encompassing all plant personnel, and in absorbing programmatic lessons learned from the first two operational facilities."

A report issued last week by the General Accounting Office described the lessons-learned program as effective but in need of improvement.

For the most vocal critics of incineration, the report is disturbing. Some allege it is a hodgepodge of inaccuracies written by a biased committee in an attempt to bolster the Army's assertions that incineration is proven and safe.

For the Army, which has used incineration to destroy a quarter of the nation's chemical weapons stockpile, the report is another stamp of approval from the scientific community - a resounding vindication of incineration, juxtaposed with recommendations on how to make the program more effective.

"This is another in a series of reports that tells us we are doing the right thing in destroying our chemical weapons," said Deputy Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization (PMCD) Delbert Bunch. "What this report also tells us is that we need to remain ever-vigilant and diligent in our operational procedures, our training, and our establishment of a safety culture to ensure that the mission is accomplished in such a way that it is truly protective of human health and our environment."

Bunch's statements were included in a press release issued by PMCD, the branch of the Army charged with destroying the nation's stores of chemical weapons.
Among the list of recommendations is admonishment for what the committee describes as inconsistent criteria for classifying a chemical event. Also, the committee recommends that the Army inform the public about results of any new risk assessments, something it hints is not being done.

Further, the report says the program could do a better job of notifying local emergency management officials when an event occurs. In one case the committee cited, the Tooele facility failed to notify local officials of an incident. Since that incident, the facility has implemented new rules for notification that the committee said should be implemented in Anniston, Arkansas and Oregon.

Critics of incineration charge that the report falls short of telling the whole story and only succeeds in painting a rosy picture of an ugly scene.

Craig Williams, director of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, said, "(The report) is a setback for the credibility of the National Research Council." It is pretty strong language from an activist who weeks ago heaped praise on the NRC when it blessed neutralization as an alternative to destroying chemical weapons in Kentucky.

Williams, whose organization recently joined 11 other plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against the Anniston incinerator, said the committee's study was a carefully crafted document that "selected information on the Army's incineration program which in no way represents the real-life risks of the technology to workers and the public."

According to Williams, he and others petitioned Congressman (Gov.-elect) Bob Riley to fund the study because of a March 1998 incident at the Tooele facility.
On March 30, 1998, something went wrong at Tooele while workers were conducting chemical agent operations. A technician had difficulty draining sarin from a bomb that was slated for incineration. Seventy pounds or more of agent had solidified in the bomb.

Monitors read that agent was still there, but a probe that drains the liquid agent from the weapons was sucking air.

Workers fed the bomb into a furnace, causing the furnace to shut down and setting off alarms that registered the presence of agent 511 times above the maximum safe amount. The Army says the agent never got out the stack, but, as has been previously reported, several experts who studied the findings for The Star indicated that there was no way the Army could prove the agent didn't leave the facility.

In its report, the NRC paid scant attention to the incident that Riley aides confirm helped trigger the study. The committee gave the Tooele incident only a footnote in one of the appendixes. Additionally, the committee said in a press release that of all the cases it evaluated, none occurred while the facilities were incinerating chemical agent, a contradiction to the March 1998 incident.

"For anyone to accept this report as either accurate or objective would be a mistake," Williams said in a press release. "Unfortunately, it is the citizens living near the incinerators who will bear the consequences of its failures."