Defense Environment Alert

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

Vol. 16, No. 21

October 14, 2008

NAS REPORT ON CHEMICAL AGENT WASTE DISPOSAL ANGERS ENVIRONMENTALISTS

A new report from a National Research Council (NRC) panel is angering environmental activists because of its finding that off-site disposal of chemical weapons waste is a feasible option for chemical weapons slated to be the last of the U.S. stockpiles destroyed. But NRC panel members say their report is being misinterpreted as an endorsement of the controversial practice.

Activists at sites around the country have long contested the off-site shipment of wastes generated by the neutralization of chemical weapons. In activists' most recent challenge, they lost litigation aimed at overturning an Army plan to ship such wastes from Newport, IN, to Port Arthur, TX for incineration.

Critics argue that the NRC's stamp of approval deeming off-site shipment an acceptable option will effectively promote the option as the method of choice for final disposal of wastes from chemical agents neutralized at the country's two remaining stockpile sites where neutralization is being used. The two sites are in Pueblo, CU, and Lexington, KY.

The NRC panelists, however, deny this claim. The report, Review of Secondary Waste Disposal Planning for Blue Grass and Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plants, commissioned by the Army and based on research begun in January, concludes that sending neutralized agent, or hydrolysate, off-site for final disposal is precedented and safe, provided certain safeguards are followed. "The experience to date with the offsite shipment and treatment of mustard and nerve agent hydrolysates from the Aberdeen (MD) and Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facilities indicates that offsite transportation and disposal of these materials is a safe and technically viable course of action," the report states.

Consequently, the panel recommends that the Pueblo Chemical Depot, CU, and Blue Grass Army Depot, KY, "consider such an option now, before the plants are built and operating, to maximize the benefit from such a change." Further, the panel says that the off-site shipment of other forms of "secondary" waste generated by the disposal sites should be considered as an option, as long as the wastes go to an appropriately permitted hazardous waste disposal facility.

The report comes as the military has not yet made it clear which direction it will go in disposing of the hydrolysate from operations at the Blue Grass and Pueblo sites.

The panel also recommended that the Blue Grass site accelerate its development of a waste analysis plan, to include all the waste streams generated by chemical weapons destruction, and by doing so avoid any delay in getting the plant up and running. Construction work on the Blue Grass destruction facilities, managed by DOD's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program, got underway only in the last few weeks.

One activist with the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a national coalition of citizen groups that has long opposed off-site shipment, says the study ignores many of the objections raised by CWWG and other groups in consultations between the groups and panel members. CWWG and its allies have objected to off-site shipment because they believe it poses safety risks and would also dump hazardous wastes on other communities, which are often home to minority or low-income populations, the activist says.

CWWG recently lost a long-running battle with the Army in which the group attempted to halt shipments of neutralized chemical agent from the Newport facility to Texas, where it is being incinerated in a commercial incinerator (Defense Environment Alert, Sept. 30). Despite the setback, CWWG remains concerned that off-site shipment of hydrolysate should still be avoided from Blue Grass, which is scheduled to be the last chemical weapons stockpile site to dispose of its weapons, with a current target date for completion of 2023.

The group may still consider fresh legal action to stop the practice at Blue Grass, the activist says, noting that the panel focused on keeping the destruction timetable on-track, rather than safety considerations. The timetable for destruction of the country's chemical weapons stockpiles has already slipped on numerous occasions, and a 2012 international treaty deadline for disposal of the stockpile will certainly be missed, the Defense Department has admitted. Congress has now called for the national stockpile to be eliminated by 2017.

However, the activist says, disposal off-site of the many other types of secondary waste at Blue Grass need not be a problem, provided the wastes are tested first and found to be free of chemical agents. Such testing is recommended by the NRC panel.

Two sources familiar with the NRC process warn that the report should not be seen as an unqualified endorsement of shipping neutralized waste off-site as a preferred option. The report merely identifies off-site shipment as one option that should be considered, the sources say.

Peter Lederman, the NRC panel chair, told Defense Environment Alert that while it is "safe and technically feasible" to ship hydrolysate off-site for disposal, subject to appropriate safeguards, "obviously there are economic considerations that we did not go into." From a technical and safety point of view, he argued, however, that shipping secondary waste off-site is beneficial: "we think it would speed the thing up and save money."

CWWG is also alarmed that the waste product from three one-ton containers of chemical agent that were found to be leaking at the Blue Grass site may be shipped off-site for disposal, under ACWA's so-called "operation swift solution." Despite claims to the contrary by ACWA representatives, the CWWG activist argues that the method chosen for disposal of the waste material will set a precedent for what happens to the rest of the materials on the site.

The NRC will host a meeting open to concerned stakeholders to discuss the report's findings at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., Nov. 20.

ACWA program manager Kevin Flamm is currently studying the NRC report, an ACWA program spokesperson says. Flamm said in a written statement: "this analysis serves as a bench mark as we further develop our program to capture industry-wide waste management practices."