LATEST NEWS
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Trial burns
complete
By
HAL McCUNE of the East Oregonian
hmccune@eastoregonian.com
HERMISTON — With trial
burns in its Deactivation Furnace System finished, the Umatilla Chemical
Agent Disposal Facility will resume processing rockets from the same manufacturing
lots as the three rockets that caught fire during disposal activities last
spring.
Those fires, separate incidents at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in
April and May, involved inadvertent ignition of propellant remaining in the
rockets as they were being cut up for incineration. That resulted in low-order
explosions and fires in the Explosive Containment Room.
An extensive investigation by an Army task force has been unable
to definitively determine the cause of the rocket fire, although all the rockets
that exploded where traced to the October 1962 lot.
The investigation is continuing, but the state Department of Environmental
Quality allowed rocket processing to resume June 9 after a three-week shutdown.
The DEQ concluded that the Army’s efforts to reduce the frequency of the rocket
fires and mitigate the consequences if they occur again was adequate to allow
processing to continue.
Rather than potentially disrupting the Deactivation Furnace System
trial burns, Don Barclay, the Army’s site project manager for the Umatilla
Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, delayed processing the rest of the 1962
rockets. Those trials were successfully completed Saturday.
“While I’m pleased we’ve completed this important milestone, of
greater significance is the tremendous pride our Depot workforce has for
the safe manner in which they have emptied seven storage igloos, destroyed
more than 23 percent of the GB rockets, destroyed more than 100 tons of GB
agent, and are reducing public risk from storing these weapons,” Barclay
said.
The Deactivation Furnace System GB (sarin) trial burns were designed
to demonstrate the plant’s operational capabilities without exceeding permitted
pollutant levels. The trials involved four GB rocket disposal processing runs
monitored by an independent sub-contractor. Similar tests on the facility’s
Liquid Incinerator 1 are now under way, and the first of four burns already
has been done.
The disposal facility will now send the samples from the trial burns
to a laboratory for analysis and then submit a report to DEQ in a few weeks.
Until the preliminary report is accepted by DEQ, the disposal facility
is limited to 50 percent of the “feed rate” for rocket processing, about 19
rockets per hour, said Dennis Murphey, administrator of DEQ’s chemical demilitarization
program. Once the preliminary report is OK’d, the feed rate can go up to
75 percent. After the full report is accepted, the facility can run at 100
percent.
The disposal facility has 90 days to complete the analysis and reports,
but Murphey expected it to be done quicker.
The Deactivation Furnace System used to incinerate explosives and
propellants removed from various munitions stored at the depot, along with
associated refuse such as fiberglass tubes used to store rockets, land mine
casings and other metal items.
Despite not processing any rockets the first eight days of June
and the demands of the trial burns, it was the most productive month for
the incineration facility since it started operations last September. The
Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility destroyed 5,473 rockets in June.
The first full week after rocket processing was resumed, June 12-18,
was the most productive week since incineration began — 2,049 rockets were
destroyed.
Depot Commander Lt. Col. David “Doc” Holliday, who will conclude
his two-year Depot tour at a Thursday change-of-command ceremony, said he’s
pleased with accomplishments at the Depot.
“As I leave, I’m very pleased with what the employees have accomplished
in the storage and disposal of chemical weapons,” he said. “I’m also grateful
for the community’s continuing support. Together, we can be proud of what
we have achieved.”
Lt. Col. Donna Rutten will replace Holliday.