FURNACE TO FIRE UP IN MARCH BUT WILL NOT BURN WEAPONS

By Amy Riggin/THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Monday, January 30, 2005 10:04 AM CST

WHITE HALL — Crews at the Pine Bluff Arsenal’s chemical weapons disposal facility will begin operating one of three furnaces in March, although it will not incinerate weapons.

David Reber, project general manager for Washington Group International, the contractor hired by the Army to dispose of the weapons, told the arsenal Citizen’s Advisory Commission recently that the metal parts furnace is expected to become operational for the first time in March.

For the rest of the disposal process the metal parts furnace will be used to incinerate secondary waste, such as protective suits that have been exposed to chemical agent, “as needed,” Reber said.

The liquid incinerator, which destroys the agent, and the deactivation furnace, which destroys the weapons, were shut down earlier this month in order to replace piping in the pollution abatement system.

The pollution abatement system cools and cleans exhaust gases from the furnaces and is designed to filter harmful pollutants.

Since the start of operations, the facility has used fiberglass-reinforced plastic piping in the system, which consists of plastic embedded with fiberglass resin.

“In the joint system it tends to have some potential for leakage,” Reber said of the fiberglass-reinforced piping.

The existing pipe will be replaced with piping made from a metallic alloy that is like stainless steel. Similar piping replacements have already been completed at disposal sites at Umatilla, Ore., and Anniston, Ala.

Reber said those systems are “performing very well.”

Maj. Gen. Don Morrow, chairman of the commission and adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard, questioned how long the Army had planned to replace the piping.

Randy Long, site project manager for the facility, said the design and procurement process had been underway for approximately six to eight months.

Even though the systems at all three disposal sites are similar, he said the piping at the facilities was manufactured and installed by different companies, so they each performed slightly differently. He said an engineering analysis conducted on Pine Bluff’s system initially concluded that the piping would perform successfully.

“I think we have had better results ... but again we are having issues with the pipe,” Long said. “It became clear to us ... that the initial analysis was not going to hold true.”

Chemical weapons disposal operations are expected to resume in mid-May.

The piping replacement has already been completed on the metal parts furnace, Reber said.

Before the shut down, more than 34,000 M55 rockets and more than 350,000 pounds of the nerve agent GB, or sarin, had been incinerated. Those figures represent 38 percent of the total amount of GB rockets and 5 percent of the total amount of chemical agent stored at the arsenal.

The arsenal stores 12 percent of the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons and is the nation’s second largest stockpile. Its inventory includes GB rockets, VX rockets and land mines and ton containers of mustard agent.

Reber said the next campaign to dispose of VX rockets is expected to begin in 2007 and preparations for the switch will begin later this year.

Long said more than 80 percent of the overall chemical agent there is mustard agent, which will be disposed of last because it poses the least amount of risk to the community.

The weapons must be disposed of by 2012 under the guidelines of an international treaty.