Chemical weapon incineration safe, new report shows

This story was published Wed, Dec 4, 2002

By The Associated Press and the Herald staff

America's arsenal of chemical weapons can be safely incinerated, but safety remains a major concern, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The 135-page report studied chemical releases and violations at incineration plants at Tooele, Utah, and Johnston Atoll.

"The risk to the public and to the environment of continued storage overwhelms the potential risk of processing and destruction of stockpiled chemical agent," said the report by the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academies of Science. "The destruction of aging chemical munitions should proceed as quickly as possible."

The Army is destroying about 31,500 tons of nerve agents and highly toxic blister agents at a projected cost of $24 billion. About a quarter of the stockpile has been destroyed at incinerators in Tooele and on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The Army hopes to begin burning 3,717 tons of deadly chemical munitions stored at Umatilla next year.

"Umatilla has three-quarters of a year to get their act together and we are urging them to do that," said Charles Kolb, chairman of the committee that studied chemical accidents at Johnston Atoll and Tooele.

The council report identified 40 cases where chemical agent leaked into areas where it was not supposed to and three where it escaped from an incinerator building. But it said the amounts that escaped were too small to threaten the public.

However, Kolb said if the council were issuing the Army a report card, it would only rank an average grade.

"We've always tried to get them to aspire to be the best of the industries handling chemicals, not just average, like they are now," Kolb said.

Tooele in particular has failed to make its facility as safe as possible, he said.

"They are not operating in a dangerous level, but we haven't seen the improvements ... that we'd like to see. It's not as safe as we think it could be," Kolb said.

The findings on Tooele were made before a July incident in which two workers were exposed to sarin, Kolb noted.

Moreover, he said, issues remain with the monitors the Army uses to detect chemical agents. Investigators found "a dangerous mindset" among workers because of the frequency that the monitors give a "false positive" alarm.

"There is a tendency among workers to act as if the alarms aren't real," Kolb said. "It's the old fable of crying wolf. ... The alarms are ignored when they do go off."

Additionally, Kolb said there is a tendency among employees to let their guard down when they aren't handling nerve agent.

"We found there was poor communication in a number of incidents that we looked at. They have well-thought-out procedures in place for agent operations. But where they get into trouble is during operations like trial burns and maintenance work. They're not so careful," Kolb said.

Overall, Kolb said, "Good things are happening, but they've got to keep improving to guard against these things. We don't want anyone being seriously injured or dead."

Umatilla officials hailed the report as an endorsement of incineration.

"Our facility is already being regulated as a hazardous waste facility, so these are standards we are already following," said Mary Binder, Army spokeswoman.

The Army's contractor, Washington Demilitarization Co., will continue to work to implement suggestions outlined in the report, said company spokesman Rick Kelley.

The National Academies of Science is a private, nonprofit entity that provides scientific guidance to the government. The study was financed by the Defense Department and requested by former Rep. Bob Riley, R-Ala., the state's governor-elect.

 

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