Defense Environment Alert 12/13/05

SENATOR PUSHES EXPANSION OF NEW CHEMICAL WEAPONS DISPOSAL METHOD

A Kentucky senator is pushing funding for research into the use of an innovative chemical weapons disposal method as a potentially useful process for destroying conventional munitions. Current destruction methods for conventional munitions are unpopular with civilian groups who say the methods are environmentally harmful.

The development comes as a new National Research Council (NRC) report expresses cautious optimism about supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) and as planning moves forward to use it at a Kentucky munitions plant.

The Senate version of the fiscal year 2006 defense appropriations bill, now in conference, includes a $4.9 million earmark, inserted by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), for research and development on the use of SCWO.

DOD has chosen SCWO as a secondary treatment method for chemical munitions stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD) in Kentucky, but some activists and lawmakers have said it could also be useful in disposing of conventional weapons. The Bunning earmark would go toward buying equipment for a SCWO facility for disposal of conventional munitions at BGAD that would be separate from the chemical weapons site.

“The technology is quite applicable,” says Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a citizens coalition that monitors the military’s chemical weapons disposal program. “From a public health standpoint, it’s a significant improvement on some existing technologies for disposal like open burning or open detonation.”

Open burning/open detonation (OB/OD) is the Defense Department’s preferred method of conventional weapons disposal, by which munitions are either burned or detonated in pits, ideally destroying all potentially harmful elements before they can contaminate the surrounding area. Environmentalists and others have criticized the method because of the air quality risks it poses. According to California data from 1999, OB/OD operations released more than 5 million pounds of air pollutants, including almost 30,000 pounds of lead, making it the state’s largest stationary source of air pollution (Defense Environment Alert, May 21, 2002, p17).

The NRC report on SCWO may also have implications for future conventional munitions disposal, according to NRC sources. The report, requested by DOD as part of its analysis of a Bechtel Parsons design proposal for the plant, concludes that hydrolysis and SCWO -- DOD’s chosen disposal methods for the BGAD weapons -- can be effectively combined to dispose of chemical weapons. Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the United States must eliminate all of its stockpiled chemical weapons by an extended deadline of 2012. The Government Accountability Office has contended the United States is at risk of missing the deadline, and Army officials have acknowledged they face problems meeting it, particularly with regard to the Blue Grass and Pueblo, CO, sites.

The NRC report states that SCWO is not fully tested in terms of its effectiveness on chemical weapons. “Everything points to good stuff, but it’s unproven,” says an NRC source. The report adds, “Despite its important advantages, SCWO has not yet become a commercial success,” noting that only one commercial plant has operated for an extended period. The byproducts of chemical weapons disposal through SCWO are highly corrosive to metals, necessitating “frequent replacement of the reactor liner” at Blue Grass, according to the report.

But the technology is already viable for conventional weapons disposal and its environmental impact is less harmful than OB/OD, according to Williams, Army press officers and a source on the NRC study committee.

“This SCWO unit will help us get away from some of these older technologies,” says Dave Easter, a BGAD public affairs officer. Methods like OB/OD “are not liked by our neighbors and our state,” he says, adding, “SCWO is as effective against conventional weapons as against anything else.”

The NRC source confirms that the byproducts of conventional weapons disposal through SCWO are less corrosive than from chemical munitions. “Energetics” -- the explosive part of a conventional weapon -- “are not hard to process with SCWO,” the source says. “The SCWO unit oxidizes energetics underwater, and it’s definitely cleaner than OB/OD. Of all the materials they’ve tested, energetics are the easiest. If the issue is whether to use OB/OD or SCWO, I guess SCWO is preferable.”

The source points out, however, that the decision to use one technology over another will be made by high-level DOD officials who must weigh financial as well as technical factors, not scientists who do such research.