STORED ROCKET LEAKS SARIN IN ARSENAL IGLOO

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Friday, July 29, 2005

WHITE HALL -- Crews at the Pine Bluff Arsenal were searching for a leaking rocket Thursday after the chemical agent sarin was detected in one of the concrete igloos that stores the weapons.

Carole Newton, public affairs officer for the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program, said an "extremely low level" of the agent was detected Thursday during a weekly check of the air inside the storage igloos.

"It's the kind of level that you and I could work in without any effects whatsoever," Newton said. "But they know if they detect any kind of amount, that something's leaking."

As of Thursday evening, crews were still in the process of trying to locate where the leak was coming from, she said, adding that it could take several days to pinpoint the source.

"They put a filter on (the igloo) so that nothing is going into the atmosphere," Newton said. "There is not any danger to the public or the workers here on post."

There have been 42 "leakers" found at the Arsenal since 1982, all of them M55 rockets containing the nerve agent GB, or sarin. The last one was found on Jan. 14, 2002.

Newton said this is not the first time agent has been detected in an igloo, but that typically a leaking rocket is found using a different kind of process, called enhanced storage monitoring.

In a previous interview, Randy Long, site project manager for the Arsenal's disposal facility, said crews use that method to test a certain number of rockets each year. The rockets are contained in shipping and firing tubes. The plug is pulled on the tube and the air inside is tested for agent, he said.

Workers donned protective clothing before entering the igloo Thursday, Newton said.

"They don't know which rocket is leaking," she said. "That's what they're going to determine."

Crews won't necessarily have to test every rocket in the igloo, Newton added. Instead, they will section it off and conduct more tests of the air inside until they close in on the leaker, or leakers.

When a leaking rocket is discovered, it is sealed back up and another "overpack" steel container is put on top of the shipping and firing tube, Long said. The leakers are then moved to a separate location.

The leakers will be the last of the sarin rockets to be incinerated, he said.

"We have a real stable stockpile here, probably one of the best," Newton said. "In (Anniston) Alabama, they have 700 or 800 total leakers now. We were very lucky because we got a real good mix of agent that doesn't tend to have leakers."

The Arsenal is one of eight sites that house the nation's reserve of chemical weapons, which must be destroyed by a 2012 international treaty deadline.

Twelve percent of the U.S. stockpile, including the largest inventory of M55 rockets, is stored there. In addition to sarin rockets, the Arsenal's stockpile includes rockets and land mines containing VX and ton containers (large steel containers) filled with HD and HT mustard, or blister, agent.

The sarin rockets were brought here from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado during the Cold War era, between 1961 and 1965.

The igloos are located in the northwest portion of the Arsenal. The rockets are transported in a specially-designed container a couple of miles from the disposal facility in the northeast portion of the Arsenal.

Newton said none of the rockets in that particular igloo had been transported to the facility.