Defense Environment Alert
September 23, 2003

TOOELE PCB BURN DATA FOR VX ROCKETS SPARKS CALLS FOR NEW TRIALS

The Army's Utah chemical weapons incinerator has fallen just short of meeting permit requirements for destroying polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in shipping and firing tubes for rockets with VX agent, and is negotiating with state and federal regulators on when and how it will conduct additional demonstration burns.

Preliminary laboratory results indicate a recent burn of rocket tubes at the Tooele, UT, facility fell less than one ten-thousandth of a percent short of its permit mandates, prompting EPA regulators to call for additional testing.

Incineration opponents have cited the "failure" of the demonstration burns in their fight to prevent a similar incinerator in Alabama from beginning operations. But the Army maintains the elevated PCB levels in stack emissions are the result of a laboratory error. "The Army has received preliminary data that the spike is indeed the result of analytical problems," an Army spokesman says.

The Army's hazardous waste permit for its Tooele Chemical Disposal Facility (TOCDF) in Utah requires the military to prove a destruction rate equivalent to 99.9999 percent of the amount of PCBs going into the furnace. But during burns conducted in August, readings indicated that destruction of PCBs was just under the so-called "six nines" level, the spokesman says. Although the destruction rounded up to six nines, the actual reading was about 99.99985 percent, just missing the permit criteria, he says.

Similar performance levels were observed during demonstration burns for PCBs in rocket tubes before the destruction of sarin-filled munitions, the Army spokesman says, and "the similarity in numbers raised a red flag on the issue to us." The Army is required to conduct new demonstration burns for the rocket tubes whenever it switches over to destroying a new type of chemical agent, although the composition of the shipping and firing tubes is the same, the spokesman says. During the sarin burns, it was determined that the laboratory doing the analysis had a contaminant from a previous test that skewed the test results, and the Army believes something similar happened with the VX analysis, he says.

Adding to the Army's belief in an analytical error is that even in "clean" feeds to furnace, or burns where the Army knew there were no PCBs, in the material, there were similar numbers indicating the presence of PCBs, he says. "This seemed to indicate that the contaminant was downstream of the feed in the incinerator complex or outside our controls, such as the lab," the spokesman says.

While the Army is confident the problem is associated with laboratory methods, EPA regulators are pressing TOCDF to conduct a partial repeat of the demonstration burn, where PCB emissions will be sampled only from the furnace stack. TOCDF is coordinating with state regulators to determine requirements on resuming operations at the facility, with the demonstration burn tentatively scheduled to occur following the completion of a scheduled maintenance shutdown, which ends Oct. 1, he says.

A Sept. 4 TOCDF press release explains the scheduled "maintenance outage" is to replace a leaking liner in a spent decontamination system tank, which is used to temporarily store liquids generated during decontamination operations inside the plant. In addition to the tank liner replacement, TOCDF will be completing "other preventive, corrective and modification activities" that are aimed at ensuring "sustained, reliable processing operations through the remainder" of the VX destruction process, the press release says.

Remaining VX agent-filled munitions include M55 rockets, M56 rocket warheads or rockets with no propellant, 155mm projectiles, ton containers, spray tanks and land mines.

State sources could not be reached for comment.