Published: January 05 , 2008

Agent spill under control

Ronica Shannon
Register News Writer

There have not been any repercussions from the state and federal governments as of yet concerning a one-gallon spill of chemical nerve agent GB, or "sarin" that occurred at the Blue Grass Army Depot in August of last year.

Mere vapors were detected Aug. 27, when Dick Sloan, public affairs for the Blue Grass Chemical Activity, issued a press release. However, it was not until the next day that the spill was located, Sloan said.

Since the incident, the Kentucky Division of Waste Management has been spending most of their efforts on working with the Army to make sure the agent release was not harmful to people off post.

The Army has presented the Division of Waste Management with a "real time" model that tracks the potential travel path of nerve agent vapors based on numbers from actual monitor readings, including the vapor's concentration and the current wind direction.

"What you're trying to do is model what would happen if a release like this were to occur," said Anthony Hatton, assistant director of the Kentucky Division of Waste Management.

This is the same model used by the Madison County Emergency Management Agency during chemical disaster drills. The model shows how the "plume" of vapor would travel in case of a nerve agent vapor release. The path of travel determines what areas of the community are in potential danger.

"Based on what they (the Army's model) conclude, there doesn’t appear to be any releases (of nerve agent vapor) off post, or even outside the chemical-limited area," Hatton said. "We're going to review (the model) and make sure we feel comfortable with it."

The storage igloo has been filtered with a high-power fan since the agent spill in August.

"It's monitored seven days a week and we’re not getting any reading," said Dick Sloan, public relations officer for the Blue Grass Chemical Activity, which is the organization located at the depot in charge of overseeing the storage of chemical weapons stored there.

The filtering will continue until the destruction of the 1-ton containers in March.

"If we're going to get another leak, we want to catch it right away," Sloan said. "We're going to do our best."

Chemical Agent Transfer System (CHATS) will be used to destroy the 157 gallons of the chemical mixture being stored in three stainless steel containers.

The CHATS essentially is a sealed box that allows operators to manually drain the contents of a ton container into a self-contained neutralization reactor.

It will not be a permanent structure, and will be sent back to a weapons disposal site in Maryland after the containers are destroyed.

The CHATS turns toxic waste into industrial waste, which will be stored at the depot, then a contract will be formed with a commercial facility to have them provide appropriate disposal.

Destruction of the containers should begin in March and continue about 80 days and cost $2 million, and is well worth the time and money, said Dave Easter, public affairs officer for the depot.

"You're going to keep having this problem over and over," Easter said. "The materials inside this ton container are highly corrosive, and the corrosion is working its way along the screws, eating away at the threads. The best way to deal with this is how ACWA (Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative, the federal agency overseeing the weapons’ destruction) plans on dealing with it, which is to eliminate the problem."

Ronica Shannon can be reached at rshannon@richmondregister.com or 623-1669, Ext. 234.