2 PROBES STARTED AT ARSENAL

By Wilson Brown/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday,  June 9, 2005 

An Army accident investigation board and a private company will investigate Monday's fire at the Pine Bluff Arsenal that destroyed a warehouse and 7,500 canisters of white phosphorous.

Meanwhile, the Arsenal has received test results from water and air samples taken after the fire, but officials weren't ready to discuss the results, spokeswoman Raini Wright said Wednesday.

The Arsenal's acting commander, Lt. Col. Searless Hathaway, said only partial results had been delivered and officials were waiting for the rest.

Hathaway said she is hoping to get the rest of the results in today or Friday, adding that she and the Arsenal staff are really "pushing to get them back by Friday."

Other agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, also were expected to perform water and air tests, Wright has said.

No monetary estimate of damage was available, Wright said.

Two days after the fire, which burned for nearly 18 hours, the Arsenal was vague about the phosphorous supply on post and whether it was now being handled differently because of the blaze. Wright declined to answer those questions, as well as whether fire investigators were working yet and how many warehouses of phosphorous the facility maintained.

"That's under assessment," Wright said, adding that the way the Arsenal stores supplies of the chemical will also be part of the investigation.

Hathaway also wouldn't be specific.

"We're the Army's sole supplier of white phosphorus ammunitions in the Western Hemisphere," she said. "We're producing it as the Army calls for it. And right now they aren't calling for anymore."

Hathaway said she did not have the exact number of warehouses on base containing white phosphorus and didn't want to speculate on how many phosphorus warehouses the Arsenal has.

Wright also first declined to provide information about the private company hired to investigate the fire. Later in a written statement, the Arsenal announced that the company is Fire Cause Investigations, a division of Tyler, Texas-based System Engineering Laboratories Corp.

The accident investigation board will be made up of experts from the Army Chemical Materials Agency "to prevent further accidents of this type," said Mark Lumpkin, president of the board.

Lumpkin, director of Risk Management and Regulatory Affairs for the Arsenal, said the board "has convened in an attempt to discover the root cause of this accident."

The CMA board started its work Wednesday, Hathaway said, and the private contractors are expected to start their investigation today.

No one was reported hurt by the fire, which sent dramatic plumes of white smoke into the sky and across the Arkansas River into portions of Jefferson County. Arsenal fire crews allowed the fire to burn itself out.

"It didn't get off of post except for over to the riverside," Hathaway said Monday of the smoke. "Some of the smoke drifted across the river."

Hathaway said Monday she suspected the white phosphorus caught fire itself since the chemical "spontaneously ignites" when it comes in contact with air.

The flammable chemical was being housed in canisters, not ammunition rounds, Hathaway has said.

The Arsenal uses white phosphorus for smoke grenades and incendiary devices.

Prolonged contact with the chemical can be harmful, according to officials with both the Arsenal and ADEQ.

The ADEQ is waiting to review studies done by private contractors hired by the Arsenal to study the effects the phosphorus smoke might have on the air, water and soil, said Doug Szenher, an agency spokesman.