Defense Environment Alert 11/04/03

Defense Environment Alert

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

Vol. 11, No. 22--November 4, 2003

NON-STOCKPILE DESTRUCTION TECHNOLOGIES NEARING DEPLOYMENT

The Army is preparing to field in the coming months several transportable technologies to destroy recovered non-stockpile chemical weapons through neutralization, moving closer to disposal of both weapons that have been transported to storage facilities and those that have yet to be found and may be too unstable to move.

William Brankowitz, deputy product manager of the Army's non-stockpile program, updated state waste officials last month on the status of four technologies, noting that the Army has identified 96 suspected burial locations in 38 states, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. And because chemical weapons were not considered "special" materiel prior to 1969, it is possible buried chemical weapons will be found in more sites, he said.

Michael Parker, director of the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, which oversees the non-stockpile program, told House members last week that the military's fiscal year 2004 budget contains a "significant" increase in funding to identify and characterize these burial sites.

Chemical Agent Identification Sets (CAIS) are one of the more commonly found types of non-stockpile materiel because the Army used them in training through the early 1960s. The sets contain vials of diluted agent, which could help soldiers identify chemical agents on the battlefield. The Army's Rapid Response System (RRS) is used to destroy large batches of CAIS and was successfully deployed this summer at Fort Richardson, AK, Brankowitz said. The Army is preparing to move the RRS to Pine Bluff Arsenal, AR, pending state approval under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, to destroy recovered CAIS items that are stored there.

Additionally, Brankowitz announced that next month, the Army plans to procure a small technology useful for treating single vials from CAIS. This technology is known as Single CAIS Access and Neutralization System, or SCANS. Unlike the RRS, which is housed in two large trailers, SCANS is a tabletop device that treats one vial at a time. The Army will use several of the devices to deal with CAIS finds across the country.

The Army has developed the Explosive Destruction System (EDS) to handle explosively configured munitions without using open detonation. The first phase of this technology, EDS 1. destroyed a total of 34 chemical munitions in FY04, and the Army is preparing to bring the EDS I to Pine Bluff, pending state approval.

The Army has been testing a larger version of this technology, EDS 2, which can handle multiple rounds at one time, in the United Kingdom. Brankowitz said the military has tested up to three items at a time in the EDS 2 chamber, but in follow-on tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, the military will test up to six items. Depending on the results of the tests and a cost-benefit analysis, the Army may use EDS 2 at Pine Bluff instead of building a fixed facility to treat the large number of recovered non-stockpile items there, Brankowitz said.

And next month, the Army is preparing to begin testing in the United Kingdom of the Large Item Transportable Agent Neutralization System (LITANS), he said. LITANS will be used to treat chemical-filled aircraft bombs, he said. Also, the Army is developing test plans for a technology known as the carbon dioxide blaster. This could be used as an alternative method to treat metal parts contaminated with chemical agent, he said. Preliminary tests of the technology on emptied ton containers at Aberdeen indicate the technology can treat metal to the Army's 5X cleanliness designation, he said.