Defense Environmental Alert
June 18, 2002

ARMY OBTAINS NATIONAL PERMIT TO DESTROY PCBS IN CHEMICAL WEAPONS

EPA has granted the Army a national Toxic Substances Control Act permit to incinerate polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) found in stockpiled chemical weapons at sites across the country. The permit allows the Army to hold a single nation-wide permit, with site-specific operating conditions for treating the fiberglass shipping and firing tubes of M55 chemical agent rockets, according to a June 10 press release from the Army's program manager for chemical demilitarization (PMCD).

EPA issued the permit June 6. It requires a destruction and removal efficiency of 99.9999 percent, according to a PMCD spokeswoman.

"While PCBs are a minute portion of the overall risk, they cannot be ignored," Army Assistant Secretary for Installations & Environment Mario Fiorl said in the press release. "This permit provides consolidated oversight from EPA headquarters, and facilitates accomplishing our overall mission to destroy these weapons safely and timely."

The permit has an immediate impact on disposal operations at the Army's Tooele, UT, facility, which is poised to begin destruction of VX-filled M55 rockets, the Army says. M55 rockets are the only type of munition in the stockpile with trace quantities of PCBs, it says. The other facilities scheduled to destroy M55 rockets are those in Umatilla, OR; Anniston, AL; and Pine Bluff, AR. Since 1993, the Army has worked with EPA to acquire a national permit, the release says.

The Army says it has already shown PCBs can effectively be destroyed at its Tooele site. The other sites "will have to conduct trial bums to demonstrate their ability to destroy PCBs to regulatory levels," the release says. These sites are all slated to use incineration to eliminate their chemical weapons.

"The Army is confident in its ability to destroy PCBs to the required regulatory level in line with its intent to provide maximum protection to the public, the workforce and the environment," said Col. Christopher F. Lesmak, project manager for chemical stockpile disposal, in the press release.