Permit change to let casings be moved off depot

This story was published Fri, Jul 6, 2001

By Mary Hopkin
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON - Incinerated chemical weapons casings could be moved off the Umatilla Chemical Depot and recycled as scrap metal as long as no sarin is detected under a permit change approved by the state.

The Department of Environmental Quality decision last week is the first in a number of permit modifications being reviewed by the DEQ for dealing with secondary wastes from the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

The Army is preparing to destroy 7.4 million pounds of chemical weapons at the facility on the Umatilla Chemical Depot, seven miles west of Hermiston.

But the DEQ and Army must agree on what is going to happen with the secondary wastes before the Army can start incineration.

Secondary wastes are the wastes created during incineration - like the ash created, the weapons casings, hydraulic fluid from machinery and the brine captured in the incinerators' air pollution filters.

Sue Oliver of the DEQ said under the original permit the DEQ gave to the disposal facility no secondary wastes could be shipped off the site unless it is agent-free.

The catch is the phrase "agent-free," which is scientifically impossible to prove, she said. "Science doesn't allow for zero."

Essentially, that meant the Army would not be able to move any secondary wastes off the site.

This particular permit modification requires the munitions casings that previously contained the nerve agent sarin be burned in the incinerator's metal parts furnace for 15 minutes at 1,000 degrees. Then they may be taken to a scrap metal smelter or a permitted hazardous waste disposal facility, such as the one at Arlington.

Oliver said the Army has tested casings that were run through the metal parts furnace at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Utah. "We think it's very clean," she said.

Oliver said the Army must meet requirements for each chemical agent present - the nerve agents sarin and VX, and for mustard with each particular waste product.

A separate permit modification must be approved for each, she said.

Sarin-filled bombs and projectiles will be the first weapons to be incinerated at the plant, Oliver said. "That's why we looked at this (permit modification request) first."

 

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