Defense Environment Alert

an exclusive biweekly report on defense policies for cleanup, compliance and pollution prevention

Vol. 14, No. 18

September 5, 2006

ACTIVISTS CITE EPA RULE TO URGE ARMY REVIEW OF MUSTARD INCINERATION PLAN

A national chemical demilitarization watchdog group is citing concerns about mercury and other contamination to urge the Army to review its plan to incinerate 12,000-plus tons of mustard agent stocks. The group, the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), is instead urging the Army to consider using non-incineration technologies to destroy the blister agent.

Among other things, CWWG is arguing that strict technology-based emissions standards for incinerators that EPA is reviewing could set stringent control requirements for mercury that would be released in the incineration process, which could make it impossible for the Army to proceed with its neutralization plan.

"Stricter [maximum achievable control technology (MACT)] emissions standards currently being considered by the EPA for incinerators could, in themselves, shut these burners down," CWWG Director Craig Williams says in a press release. Williams added in a conference call with reporters Aug. 31 that EPA's review of a MACT standard for incinerators may set more stringent mercury emissions standards.

This could lead to an "impossible" incineration standard for these facilities to operate under. If so, the Army currently has no contingency plan, he said. "Now is the time to consider options to avoid the impacts associated with any and all of these hurdles," he says in the release.

EPA Aug. 24 announced that it is reconsidering its MACT standard for hazardous waste combustors, which includes incinerators. The rule was finalized in October 2005 and set technology-based standards that seek to reduce emissions of a slew of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury. The agency is reconsidering the rule in response to petitions from industry and environmental groups, while also noting that the agency is also seeking to amend the final rule.

While the agency may decide not to change the standards contained in the 2005 rule, Williams says that even the standards set in the final rule are more stringent than prior incineration standards.

As part of its effort, CWWG Aug. 31 also unveiled an engineering report - Incinerator Retrofit/Stand-Alone Neutralization Feasibility Assessment - finding that neutralization technologies are "reasonably feasible" to destroy mustard agent at incinerator sites but stopped short of recommending that a non-incineration technology be deployed because the Army declined to release key data, the group says.

The Army has incinerators at four chemical agent stockpile sites, where it plans to burn mustard, but CWWG points out in an Aug. 31 press release that the Army has neutralized mustard stocks at some of its other sites. CWWG has long pushed for using non-incineration methods to destroy the Army's stockpiles of chemical agent, charging other methods are safer and more environmentally protective, but is now particularly placing the focus on the mustard agent stocks, some of which are contaminated with mercury.

The report is aimed at the mustard agent stockpiles stored at facilities in Anniston, AL, Pine Bluff, AR, Umatilla, OR, and Tooele, UT, all of which the Army is planning to incinerate. Mustard agent is last among the agents the military is addressing under its campaign to destroy all of the country's stockpiled chemical weapons, as required by international treaty. Tooele is the only site where the Army has begun incinerating its mustard agent, but that campaign only recently began, CWWG says.

Specifically, the group's report examined the feasibility of either retrofitting existing chemical agent incinerators with technologies that would use neutralization methods to destroy mustard agent or building nearby stand-alone neutralization facilities for the same purpose.

But without data the group is seeking from the Army, the report stopped short of recommending that a non-incineration technology be put in place at the four incinerator sites.

Without that data, it would not be appropriate "to demand" the use of neutralization at the four sites, Williams says in the press release. Instead, CWWG is seeking "to compel the Army to provide the missing information and' determine, with citizen participation, the value of using this safer technology and whether or not such action would be prudent," he says.

CWWG has been seeking the data for two years, some of which has been obtained; much of the data it acquired has been obtained through discovery during judicial proceedings, Williams said in the Aug. 31 press call. While CWWG and the Army are in negotiations over the group's data requests, if the Army denies the needed information, CWWG will use "political clout," specifically congressional pressure, to try forcing the Army to analyze alternatives to mustard stock incineration.

Despite not making a formal recommendation, the group nevertheless raises a host of questions about the benefits and efficacy of incineration, including its costs, environmental and human health risks and technical feasibility. The group also suggests that neutralization technologies could better fulfill U.S. obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention to destroy the mustard by 2012 than incineration.

A spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency at press time was unaware whether the Army had received the final report, although Army officials had seen a draft copy. He says the report appears to reiterate past requests, but the Army will look at the report. He could not confirm whether the Army had denied data to the report's author.

The cost of building four stand-alone neutralization facilities could be $2 billion, he says, noting the cost of a neutralization facility at Aberdeen, MD, to destroy mustard stocks was $500 million, covering both construction and operation.