Baltimore Sun
September 1, 2003

APG cleanup efforts fall behind schedule
Problems hamper crews working to destroy mustard agent stockpile

By Lane Harvey Brown
Sun Staff
Originally published September 1, 2003

Work to eliminate the chemical agent stockpile at Aberdeen Proving Ground has fallen about six months behind schedule because of problems in the destruction process, officials told members of an Aberdeen Proving Ground environmental oversight panel recently.

None of the problems has caused a worker injury or a release of mustard agent, a banned, carcinogenic blistering liquid that resembles molasses, officials said. But since the last incident Aug. 16, when a carbon filter drum overheated and began smoking, no mustard has been processed, said Bob Hessian, a process and facilities designer on the project.

"We're not going to make that date," Hessian said of the original November deadline for destroying the mustard agent. "We hope to get this back up and running and finish in the spring. Bottom line is we will not risk the workers or the neighboring communities for a production schedule."

The mustard agent is being destroyed by a process called neutralization. The agent is drained from containers and agitated in large tanks with hot water and a caustic compound that breaks down the mustard agent. The result of that process, hydrolysate - a mixture of water, the industrial chemical thiodiglycol and trace amounts of arsenic and lead - is shipped to a hazardous waste treatment plant in New Jersey and processed.

Hessian said the neutralization plant is a pilot project and noted that problems were likely to crop up. But some factors have proved tougher than expected, he said, mainly cleaning out the containers that hold the agent.

He said workers are spending from six to 200 hours trying to remove all traces of agent from the canisters, which have plug threads, old paint and other tricky surfaces to treat.

And because workers are doing the cleaning manually, through specially vented and sealed glove boxes, the water pressure and temperature must be carefully controlled to prevent injuries, he said.

"We are chasing extremely low levels of agent," he said, noting that workers are cleaning mustard agent from the tanks to levels that are fractions of micrograms.

John Nunn, a Kent County resident who is part of a citizens commission closely following the destruction, asked Hessian if workers were becoming frustrated with the lengthy clean-out process.

Patrick Timm, environmental manager for Bechtel Aberdeen, said, "There's some frustration in there because they want to get in there and do this."

Timm said the mustard isn't called a persistent agent for nothing. "It's really tough to deal with."