| 6/13/2006 |
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No more sarin
Depot
destroys last GB-filled bombs in the United States
By the East
Oregonian
UMATILLA
-- The last GB sarin-filled bombs at the Umatilla Chemical Depot (UMCD)
were destroyed Friday.
This
marked not only the end of 2,418 MC-1 bombs originally stored at the
depot, but also the final destruction of the nation’s entire bomb
stockpile. The United States originally had about 13,500 GB-filled
bombs.
Bruce Henrickson, public affairs officer for the depot,
said workers at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF)
destroyed the final 750-pound MC-1 bomb at 6:30 a.m. Friday morning.
Each bomb contained 220 pounds of liquid sarin nerve agent.
The
final 18 MC-1 bombs processed last week were leaking munitions.
Previously, the bombs had been placed inside "overpack" containers to
safely contain nerve agent. Two-person crews dressed in protective
suits unpacked each leaking bomb.
Henrickson said there are no
more bombs of any kind stored at the depot and "no more bombs of any
kind in the U.S." On May 18, workers destroyed the last 27 of the
depot’s MK-94 500-pound sarin bombs.
The depot continues to
securely store rockets, artillery projectiles, land mines, spray tanks
and bulk containers awaiting disposal.
The depot and the chemical agent disposal facility reached other
milestones as well.
On
June 1, depot chemical operations storage workers delivered the 3,000th
enhanced on-site container shipment, which contained four MC-1 bombs,
to the disposal facility. This represents about 40 percent of the
expected 7500 deliveries needed to move the entire depot's stockpile to
the UMCDF.
Enhanced on-site containers are cylindrical
containers, eight-and-half feet tall and nearly 12 feet long, weighing
18,500 pounds empty, and they can hold 7,000 pounds of munitions and
chemical agent.
The containers are designed to safely resist
impacts, punctures, crushing and fire. They have been tested by being
placed in a jet fuel fire, by being dropped on a metal spike and by
undergoing 50,000 pounds of compression for 24 hours.
The
containers also would prevent the release of chemical agent into the
atmosphere if a munition should develop a leak during movement, the
depot reported.
"Moving and eliminating the last of the bombs
further reduces the risk of stored chemical munitions," UMCD Commander
Lt. Col. Donna Rutten said.
Since disposal operations began at
the UMCDF in September of 2004, the overall risk has been reduced by 78
percent, Henrickson said.
The disposal facility also completed the final permit-required,
GB-agent trial burn for the liquid incinerator No. 2 on Friday.
Henrickson
explained that any furnace at the facility has to meet environmental
permit requirements. To do that, the furnaces are tested by
incinerating small amounts of nerve agent. If the agent is properly
incinerated and environmental requirements are met, then the state
allows the facility to proceed with burning agent that has been drained
from munitions.
If approved in the state review process with the
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, this will mean all GB-agent
trial burns are completed -- an effort covering several years to
prepare
and prove the UMCDF's four furnaces for chemical agent disposal.
After
completing the MC-1 bomb campaign, the UMCDF resumed processing M55 GB
rockets. More than 72,000 of the depot's M55 rockets have been
destroyed, Henrickson said.
In the last weekly project update
released Thursday, 1,271,977 pounds of agent have been destroyed, or
17.19 percent of the total pounds to be destroyed.
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