Pine Bluff Commercial
May 28, 2003

Army supports "mobile disposal" to destroy chemical vials

Wed, May 28, 2003

By Alison Vekshin
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army announced Tuesday its support for using a treatment system housed in semi-trailers to destroy thousands of recovered vials and glass bottles containing chemical agents being stored at the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

The Army concluded the mobile units known as the Rapid Response System would be an "environmentally responsible" and cost-effective method of destroying the chemical agent sets at the arsenal, according to the Army's Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Program.

The decision was based on an environmental assessment study released in February, according to program spokesman Jeffrey Lindblad.

The chemical agents destroyed in this manner are separate from the ammunition stockpiles of chemical agents, explosives and packing material that will be disposed of through incinerators at the military facility.

"We are glad that the Non-Stockpile Program has taken the path of non-combustion technology to get rid of this kind of waste," said Elizabeth Crowe, an organizer at the Chemical Weapons Working Group, which opposes the use of incineration to destroy chemical weapons.

"It is safer for workers, safer for the community and sets a precedent within the Army that using environmentally safe technology is acceptable to the community," Crowe continued.

The vials, called Chemical Agent Identification Sets, were produced between the 1940s and 1970s to train military personnel in the safe handling, identification and decontamination of chemical agents on the battlefield, Lindblad said.

Over the years, the environmentally acceptable method of disposal was to bury the vials and bottles, Lindblad said.

The mobile treatment systems that will be outfitted in three semi-trailers will neutralize each recovered set inside an on-board glove box using a one-gallon, neutralization-mixing vessel, the Army said.

Solid and liquid wastes will then be shipped in compliance with U.S. Department of Transportation regulations to one or more licensed and approved commercial treatment facilities for final disposal.

The program tested the system on May 17, 2001, at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah, where 1,226 chemical agent sets were successfully destroyed.

The mobile treatment system will operate at the arsenal between late 2004 and early 2007 once the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality issues a permit, Lindblad said.

Environmental activists also were applauding a provision in the defense bill the Senate passed last week that directs the Army to update chemical agent monitoring at the Pine Bluff Arsenal and other stockpile sites.

"We are particularly pleased that the amendment includes every storage and disposal site," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group.

The upgrade is intended to modernize the depots' monitoring systems to better confirm any toxic agent releases, reduce response time to alarms and to distinguish between real and false alarms, the group said.

Besides Pine Bluff, the provision also affects depot communities in Oregon, Kentucky, Utah, Colorado, Indiana and Maryland.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., still must be approved in the House.