ARMY TESTS ROCKETS IN PROBE OF FIRES

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday,  June 23, 2005 

The Army is conducting tests on rockets from an Oregon depot as part of an investigation into recent fires during incineration there and at the Pine Bluff Arsenal. Similar tests are planned for rockets stored here as well.

The U.S. Chemical Materials Agency said that Umatilla Chemical Depot munitions workers disassembled nine rockets and shipped the motor assemblies to the Armament Engineering & Test Center at the Picatinny Arsenal at Dover, N.J. The motors were chosen from three manufacturer's propellant lots associated with the rocket fires at Umatilla.

There, the assemblies will undergo propellant and igniter analysis, which is expected to take about four to six weeks.

The tests are part of an ongoing investigation by a CMA task force into five fires that occurred in April and May at the two disposal facilities. The fires occurred while processing M55 rockets that had been drained of the nerve agent sarin but never breached explosive containment rooms designed to contain such events. Fires ignited at Umatilla on April 7, April 23 and May 18, while fires at the Arsenal occurred May 11 and May 22.

Cheryl Avery, public affairs officer for the Arsenal, could not provide any further details Wednesday as to when rockets here will be sent for testing.

Jeff Lindblad, spokesman for CMA, which is based at Aberdeen Proving Ground at Maryland, also could not provide specifics on testing of rockets stored here.

He said crews will separate the portion of the rocket containing the propellant and motor from the warhead. The propellants and motors will be analyzed to determine what causes the propellant to ignite while the rockets are being sheered into pieces before being incinerated.

Officials have maintained that there was never any danger to personnel or any release of chemical agent in the environment as a result of the fires.

"The rockets are safe in storage," Lindblad added. "The fires are just occurring when we actually put the rocket into the rocket sheer machine."

The Umatilla Depot received approval from the state of Oregon to restart rocket processing on June 9.

After the May 11 fire at the Arsenal, operations resumed on May 13. Work resumed eight hours after the fire on May 22.

Michael Parker, CMA director, appointed Gregory St. Pierre, director of CMA's risk management, to lead the task force.

"We are employing the best expertise available in investigating these fires," St. Pierre said. "Chemical weapons disposal is a complex business with safety of our workers, our communities and our environment at its core.

"Upset conditions are expected, but safety systems in place worked as designed. We await the insight the experts ... can shed on this subject."

The task force includes people from CMA; Washington Group International, the contractor hired by the Army to dispose of the weapons; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Southwest Research Institute; Sandia National Laboratory; EG&G and the Engineering & Technology Center.

In addition to the Arsenal, which is disposing of the nation's largest original inventory of about 90,000 rockets, Lindblad said the only other sites storing sarin rockets now are depots at Umatilla and Kentucky. The depot at Anniston, Ala., has completed disposal of its rockets.

As of Monday, the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility had incinerated 11,363 rockets and 101,330 pounds of sarin. In the preceding week, 1,345 rockets and 8,662 pounds of sarin were destroyed.

The Arsenal and the depot in Oregon each contain 12 percent of the nation's originally declared chemical weapons stockpile, which must be destroyed by 2012 under an international treaty.