ARSENAL NEARS ANOTHER DISPOSAL JOB

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Friday,  June 24, 2005 

The Army's Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Project announced Friday that it is preparing to begin another campaign after completing an assessment of chemical agent identification sets stored at the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

The non-stockpile project at the Arsenal stores, monitors and maintains former production facilities and other materiel that is separate from the chemical weapons stockpile. Items stored there include non-lethal binary chemical munition components, recovered chemical warfare materiel and other miscellaneous chemical warfare materiel dating back to World War I.

The Army used chemical agent identification sets from 1928 to 1969 to train soldiers and sailors in the safe handling, identification and decontamination of chemical warfare agents. They were produced in large quantities and various configurations and were widely distributed.

The sets consist of chemical agents placed in vials and bottles and packed in metal shipping containers or wooden boxes. In some cases, only the glass vials or bottles containing agent were buried.

The Pine Bluff Munitions Assessment System (PBMAS) -- a truck and trailer system developed to provide detailed information on the contents of recovered but unidentified munitions -- will begin the next campaign in late June or early July, according to Maj. Kevin Peel, PBMAS project manager.

Livens projectiles, 4.2-inch mortars, 75 mm munitions and World War II German Traktor Rockets will be included in that assessment, items that not only contain potential chemical agent but could be explosively configured as well.

"Most of these items were recovered at some point and eventually stored here," Peel said. "Some of the items are believed to contain chemical agent, but are not part of the U.S. Army chemical stockpile. The assessment will confirm what agents, if any, are in them and give Non-Stockpile a clearer path in the destruction of these potentially dangerous items."

Operators will use technology such as X-rays and gamma rays to determine whether a round may contain a blister agent like mustard or even the German agent DA Arsinol.

"The ability to determine what's inside a potential chemical warfare item without opening it is beneficial to the environment and to the safety of the people involved," Peel said.

The assessment is expected to be completed next summer. At Non-Stockpile Headquarters at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., final plans are in place to use a mobile treatment technology at the Arsenal called the Explosive Destruction System to neutralize and destroy the items. Neutralization is a process in which chemical agents are chemically mixed with water to destroy the agent using hydrolysis.

A similar mobile system called the Rapid Response System will destroy the identification sets that the PBMAS finished assessing in February.