News

Newport leak won't delay VX timeline
Spill occurred Oct. 29; problems with reactor cited

By Patricia L. Pastore/Tribune-Star

Temporary interruptions in the nerve agent destruction process will have no bearing on the Army's timeline for destruction of the Newport stockpile.

Two spills and a leak inside a sealed chamber in the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility weren't anything the engineers didn't plan for in advance.

A spill occurred Oct. 29 when 490 gallons of VX waste drained into a sump because of a gasket failure.

Until then, the destruction process had been ahead of schedule, said Jeff Brubaker, Army site project manager, on Wednesday. He said the failure was in the re-circulation loop of the reactor used in the neutralization process.

The spill was the third “leak” since destruction began May 5, however, it is part of the anticipated “ramp-up” operations, Brubaker said. He said pauses or temporary shutdowns in the process were factored in to the overall 30-month stockpile destruction plan.

In June, material failed in valves and replacement was done that corrected that problem.

A July leak was associated with the testing of a flow meter in the reactor system, Brubaker said. “It is not a material failure. The installation was insufficient,” he said.

There were no injuries in any of the incidents, he said.

For the latest leak, new gaskets made of Teflon and stainless steel will be used to replace those in the reactor loop, which will take about two weeks, Brubaker said.

On all three occasions, plant operations staff and facility staff responded as intended, according to Brubaker. He also cited redundant features built into the facility and excellent employee training as factors in the positive response.

“This is a first-of-its-kind facility built to implement corrective actions to any of the technical issues or challenges during the VX destruction process,” he said. “A few issues and minor problems were expected during this startup of a pilot facility.

“We are the first facility to neutralize nerve agent,” Brubaker said. “Once we are assured operations are proceeding safely - once we get into full-rate operations - we plan to destroy 80 ton containers of VX per month.”

The stockpile consists of 1,269 ton containers. On Wednesday, Brubaker said 39 tons containers of VX, a nerve agent so deadly that one drop can kill a human in a minute, have been neutralized.

He said at another Army depot, a similar method was used to destroy mustard agent, and although the two are totally different chemical compounds, the neutralization process is similar.

“What we learned from that we are using now,” he said. “We were not proceeding very fast at first with the mustard agent then we worked out the problems and it moved on very smoothly. We believe that we'll have a similar experience with VX neutralization.”

The Army's preferred method to dispose of more than 2 million gallons of the VX waste generated by the neutralization, hydrolysate, is to haul it to a commercial hazardous waste treatment facility for final disposal, Brubaker said.

DuPont Secure Environment Chambers Works Plant in New Jersey has been working with the Army on a method of treating the hydrolysate and rendering it harmless so after treatment it could be dumped into the Delaware River, Brubaker said.

This method of treatment has been deemed as unacceptable by several environmental organizations, said Alan Muller, spokesman for Green Delaware.

Brubaker said if for any reason the hydrolysate can't be transported to a commercial hazardous waste treatment facility, the Army is looking at alternatives. He said those alternatives are costly and would need further development.

Centers for Disease Control had approved super critical water oxidation to treat hydrolysate before Sept. 11, 2001. A requested cost comparison for the oxidation process versus off-site treatment of hydrolysate has not been made available by the Army.

Before the next VX neutralization startup, a complete inspection of all the flanges that contained the particular gaskets that failed on Oct. 29 will be conducted, Brubaker said. He said of the gaskets inspected, 40 percent showed deterioration.

“We decided to replace all of the gaskets that have potential to contact agent, caustic (sodium hydroxide) and hydrolysate,” he said.

After the gaskets are replaced in about two weeks, we will resume operations and begin slowly to increase processing rate, Brubaker said.

“If at any time during that process we have indications of a challenge, we'll stop and evaluate; only when we feel the process is running safely and smoothly will we increase the destruction rate.”

Patricia Pastore can be reached at (812)231-4271 or pat.pastore@tribstar.com.

Story created Nov 10, 2005 - 07:38:02 CST.