Deseret News
June 29, 2003

Trial burns of nerve agent VX get under way: Army is testing deactivation furnace at plant

By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News

State officials and contractors began overseeing trial burns at the Army's chemical weapons incinerator near Stockton, Tooele County, this past week.

The $1 billion plant has been busily burning America's largest stockpile of these toxic munitions since 1996. It has destroyed all of the GB agent, amounting to more than 12 million pounds, and recently began work on VX nerve agent.

VX is especially lethal. A persistent, oily substance, it can kill with a nearly microscopic drop.

The Utah Solid and Hazardous Waste Control Board recently announced that it would begin testing the incinerator's deactivation furnace to make certain it meets standards. The deactivation furnace is where rockets are burned after they are drained of VX.

Residual amounts of VX that remain in the rockets are destroyed in the deactivation furnace, as are the rockets' explosives.

Other furnaces, the liquid incinerators, burn the drained VX. These furnaces will be tested in a later series of trials.

During six test runs that began June 23, contractor EG&G Defense Materials is operating the deactivation furnace. "The six runs are necessary to define high and low temperatures for burning VX and explosives and for measuring emissions during those runs," says a legal notice.

Marty Gray, manager of the Chemical Demilitarization Section, Utah Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste, told the Deseret Morning News that trial burns are "the main tool we have to evaluate the performance of the incinerator."

When the plant was burning GB, he said, one trial burn had to be repeated. Before that test, plans called for the incinerator to feed rockets in at 34 an hour. But they never reached that speed.

"We cut their rate," he added.

During the VX trial, officials and contractors will collect data on the smokestack gases, checking whether the plant meets its performance standards, he said.

Meanwhile, the plant is already burning VX.

"The regulations allow them to do what they call a shakedown period," he said. Munitions are processed within limits set by the plant's permit.

"Once they feel comfortable with the operation, then we go collect the data" in the trial burns, he said.

Later, the liquid incinerators will undergo the same type of testing as they burn VX. Plant workers are allowed to operate the incinerator for 720 hours of burning VX before they must either hold a trial burn or request additional time.

They have not reached 720 hours of burning VX, he said. The plant is not working 24 hours a day.

"They have done a real slow ramp-up this time, where they just started at 30 rockets a day and gradually build up from that," Gray said. "They're really being cautious this time."

He said it's a result of a new "safety culture" that emerged after a worker was exposed to GB vapors in July 2002.

"It wasn't anything that we required to do. It was their own decision," Gray said. The incinerator has started operations and stopped and restarted since it began burning VX. Originally, the trial burn was to be around March, but it was delayed while problems were worked out.

"Fortunately, they're taking the time to evaluate those and fix them," he said.

Steve Erickson, director of the social-economic advocacy group Citizens Education Project, based in Salt Lake City, said the group is "very concerned about the VX runs."

Technical issues with VX are part of the concern, he said. It may be more difficult to detect when spilled than GB was.

Also, the group has a philosophical bone to pick. It does not endorse burning as the best way to dispose of extremely toxic chemical arms.

"We still think this could have been done with chemical neutralization," Erickson said. But, he conceded, "they seem intent upon finishing up with the burns."