Research groups says air-monitoring devices at Army depot are adequate
By Ronica Brandenburg/Register News Writer

The National Research Council announced Tuesday that air-monitoring systems in storage igloos at the Blue Grass Army Depot are being monitored to the best of the Army's capability.

The research council conducted a conference in Washington, D.C., that also was broadcast over the Internet via Web cast. They announced their findings from a study done on monitoring at chemical agent disposal facilities.

Charles Kolb, chair of the committee that wrote the report, gave a brief summary of findings from the research.

The monitoring systems used at the Blue Grass Army Depot are called real-time monitors. Each of the 45 active igloos are monitored daily, and the atmosphere of each igloo is tested before workers enter. The air used in the test is then passed through a gas chromatograph that destroys the sample as it makes an analysis. This method also is called first-entry monitoring.

”Real Time“ means the readings are given within a few minutes. Some monitors do a 24-hour reading of agent activity.

”When a worker is going into an igloo, he or she wants to know what's going on inside at that very moment, not 24 hours ago,“ said Dick Sloan, public affairs officer for Blue Grass Chemical Activity.

Some of the issues surrounding real-time monitoring is their tendency to give false readings. The readings will detect nerve agent, but sometimes, the reading is a result of a system malfunction, Kolb said.

Sloan is aware of the device's tendency to give false readings.

”If workers get a positive reading before going into an igloo for daily inspection, we bring another unit up and do the same test,“ he said.

One of the most significant challenges of air-monitoring relates to the nerve agent VX. It is the largest and deadliest molecule out of the three stored at the depot, along with GB and mustard agent.

”It's sticky and it's hard to get it into the (real-time monitor),“ Kolb said.

Depot employee and recent whistleblower Donald VanWinkle was not pleased with the way depot workers monitored VX agent.

Based on VanWinkle's affidavit, the problem was that a decision had been made to remove the conversion pads from the inside of the igloos to the outside. Conversion pads are needed in sampling for VX because it is such a heavy molecule and it needs to be converted to another molecule in order for an air sample to travel through the Teflon sampling tube that is a part of the monitoring device.

However, both Kolb and Lt. Col. George Shuplinkov, commander of Blue Grass Chemical Activity, agree that either way has proven to be safe and effective.

”Both ways, the workers know what's in the air of the igloo,“ Shuplinkov said.

The National Research Council is continuing to study a new class of potentially inexpensive chemical sensors, but overall, they are satisfied with what their research indicated.

”We believe the evaluation is a valuable thing and the finding that the Army can do the job with the equipment they have is an important finding,“ Kolb said.

The National Research Council is a private, non-profit institution that provides science, technology and health policy advice under a congressional charter.

For more information about the council, visit www.nationalacademies.org.

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