Events around stack releases verify
Utah incinerator dangerously out of control

(Excerpted from the August 2000 issue of CWWG's newsletter "Common Sense")

On May 8 at 11:26 p.m., following an attempt to clear a jam in a feed chute leading to the Deactivation Furnace (DFS), there was a confirmed release of the nerve agent GB (Sarin) out the stack of the Army's Utah chemical weapons incinerator. At 12:28 a.m. May 9, just an hour later, nerve agent was again released.

Prior to the jam and subsequent leaks, M-56 warheads containing "gelled" nerve agent were being processed in the DFS, a procedure which, according to Jason Groenewold, of Families Against Incinerator Risk (FAIR), is dangerous and has magnified the historic problems with the furnace and its feed chutes. "The DFS has consistently had problems even when used as designed--for burning drained munitions," Groenewold commented. "Trying to burn munitions with gelled agent that can't be removed before processing goes way beyond the design parameters and ensures that there will be more and more problems and more and more chemical events."

Compounding the danger of a furnace being operated outside its parameters, is the poor management of the facility by the Army and its contractor EG&G, as evidenced by the inept activities during the May 8-9 incidents. These actions included: inability to locate approved procedures for the circumstances; use of several inappropriate and unapproved procedures; miscommunications between operators; disbelief of the agent monitors; poor decisions by an inexperienced operator who was allowed to handle the upset furnace; and inattentiveness on the part of the control room supervisor.

The two releases, caused by system failures and mismanagement, led to the shut down of the incinerator and investigations by the Army, the State of Utah Department of Environmental Quality. EG&G and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), whose function is to provide public health oversight for the facility.

Although the final investigative reports don't adequately address the inherent system design flaws nor the increased problems with the DFS, they do provide major clues to the chaos and complacency that reign at the disabled facility. The reports point to a disturbing lack of control over the high temperature/high pressure technology that has fast moving toxic gasses and an open smokestack to the outdoors.

The following examples of an increasingly complex system out of control were gleaned from the reports.

• There is a recent trend toward more frequent events. In March there were 22 events, in April 25 events and in May there were 10 events before the facility was shut down May 9.
• Operating procedures are not sufficiently detailed to ensure the safe and proper operation of the plant.
• The latest revisions of procedures are not necessarily the ones being used. Revisions are happening so fast that it is difficult to keep up. Corrective Actions are taking an excessive amount of time to close--a year or more. Many are closed by opening change proposals instead of completing the work.
• The agent alarm system is not trustworthy. Operators and supervisors have become complacent about agent alarms because of the myriad "false.positive" alarms that occur. In the 96 days from January 1, 2000 to April 5, 2000, there were 197 ACAMS alarms, and 80 of these were false positive alarms.
• The water spray system as designed increases the potential for exces- sive moisture and agent alarms can become ineffective when there are high moisture conditions.
• There is no evidence that lessons learned from the Lessons Learned Program have been implemented at the Utah incinerator.
• Jamming of the DFS feed chutes has been a recurring problem at the facility and regularly causes difficulties.
• The scrubber, the water spray and the exhaust fan systems don't function efficiently under normal conditions.
• Operators and managers do not understand the necessary conditions for agent destruction.
• Operators are working under the impression that production is more important than safety.
• Because operators and supervisors don't understand the system for measuring agent levels they work with a "false sense of security."

"We might as well have the Keystone Kops running the incinerator," said Groenewold. "The Army insists that its incineration technology is safe and 'mature.' A system where no one knows exactly what is going on and where working outside design parameters is an accepted practice is hardly safe. And a system that has had more than 500 permit modifications and 350 engineering changes in four years is hardly mature. What is it going to take for the Army to finally admit that low temperature advanced technologies with no smokestacks are safer than incineration? I hope it's not a body bag."

The Utah incinerator facility started limited operations on July 28 after being completely shut down for 80 days at a cost of $285,000 per day. Processing in the DFS is expected to resume sometime in August.

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