Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 7
1
Introduction
CHEMICAL STOCKPILE DISPOSAL PROGRAM
The Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program
(CSDP) was begun in 1985 as a result of the congres-
sional mandate in Public Law 99-145 to dispose of the
nation's aging chemical agent and munitions stockpile.
CSDP activities are proceeding at the nine sites where
portions of the stockpile have been stored. Disposal
operations on Johnston Island, about 800 miles south-
west of Hawaii, were completed in November 2000.
The Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System
(JACADS), the first baseline incineration system dis-
posal facility, became operational in 1990. By the
completion date, the 2,031 tons of agents in 412,732
munitions in storage on Johnston Island had been de-
stroyed (NRC, 2002a).
Eight other stockpile storage sites are located in the
continental United States. Operations at a second
baseline incineration system disposal facility, the
Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF),
in Tooele, Utah, are well under way. All 6,047 tons of
nerve agent GB that were stored there in munitions and
containers have been destroyed. Together, as of July
2002, JACADS and TOCDF had destroyed 25.6 per-
cent of the original 31,495 tons of agent that were
stored at all nine sites. Construction of three other
baseline incineration system disposal facilities has been
completed in Anniston, Alabama; Umatilla, Oregon;
and Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Two other disposal facilities
are nearing completion in Newport, Indiana, and Aber-
deen, Maryland. Planning for the last two facilities, in
Pueblo, Colorado, and Blue Grass, Kentucky, is in
progress. The facilities in Maryland, Indiana, Colorado,
and Kentucky will employ chemical neutralization (hy-
drolysis) instead of incineration as the primary means
of agent destruction.
The overall stockpile consists of a variety of chemi-
cal agents and munitions. The chemical agents are pri-
marily the nerve agents GB (sarin) and VX and mus-
tard agent (H. HD, HT), which is a corrosive vesicant
(blister) agent. The munitions consist of projectiles,
mines, and rockets, all of which contain several pounds
of agent each. There are also spray tanks, bombs, and
ton containers, each containing hundreds of pounds of
agent. The composition of the stockpile and the vari-
ous munitions has already been documented (NRC,
1994a).
M55 ROCKET PROCESSING
M55 rockets filled with GB constitute the most haz-
ardous munition-agent combination in the stockpile
because GB is the most volatile agent. An M55 rocket
is depicted in Figure 1-1. Because of concerns about
the higher risks of continued storage of M55 rockets
containing either GB or VX, the Army's plans for dis-
posal at the sites where the M55 rockets are stored
have always scheduled their processing early in the
agent disposal campaigns. There is an incentive to
process the rockets as soon as safely possible since
this reduces the storage risk faster. The rate at which
rockets can be processed is a function of both the fa-
cility design capacity and the rate allowed in the Re-
source Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) op-
7
OCR for page 8
8
\
Fumed
ASSESSMENT OF PROCESSING GELLED GB M55 ROCKETS AT ANNISTON
Fins ~ Rocket
M28 Propellant
Grain
Thin-Wall I<
Aluminum ~
Chemical Agent
Cavity
Burster
/~='
Aluminum /
Endcap
(at Each End)
\
\
Collar -- _
/
,-~
/
/
/
FIGURE 1-1 M55 chemical rocket. Source: U.S. Army (2002b).
crating permit that is issued by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) (as was the case with
JACADS) or the rate authorized by a state environ-
mental authority (as is the case with all continental
U.S. sites). The rates permitted by the respective regu-
latory authorities for JACADS and TOCDF were in
both cases equal to or somewhat less than the rate
each facility was designed to handle safely. The pro-
cessing of rockets in facilities using the baseline in-
cineration system developed by the Army is described
in detail in Chapters 3 and 4. Briefly, rockets are un-
packed, then punched and drained of agent. The agent
is transferred to a storage tank from which it is me-
tered into a liquid incinerator (LIC), where it is
burned. The drained rockets, which contain some re-
sidual agent and all the energetics, are then sheared
and the parts dropped into the deactivation furnace
system (DFS) rotary kiln.
~^ 1,,~
/ 0~e
/ ~;~ Fiberglass Shipping
Con ~,~' and Firing Tube
it'
I;. ,'
at'
/ ~'r.~°~
/
/
/
/
5-in.
ni nme.te.r
?'~~
`% ,
,~
~ /
0~'
,~<
/
/
/
/
No GB M55 rockets containing gelled agent were
encountered during disposal processing at JACADS.
However, some GB M55 rockets processed at TOCDF
contained gelled agent products that would not drain
as originally intended. These were sheared and
dropped into the DFS with both the gelled agent and
energetics.
Another issue to be dealt with during disposal pro-
cessing is that some GB-filled M55 rockets have leaked
during storage and have been overpacked (placed in
tightly sealed containers). Processing these overpacked
rockets has necessitated additional steps and increased
the risk to workers. However, the total number of over-
packed GB-filled M55 rockets processed at TOCDF
was much smaller than the total number of gelled mu-
nitions encountered. Therefore, the delays associated
with handling overpacked rockets were small compared
with the longer delays associated with processing large
OCR for page 9
INTRODUCTION
TABLE 1-1 Anniston Chemical Stockpile: Number of Munitions Containing Each Agent
Munition Mustard Agent Nerve Agent GB Nerve Agent VX
4.2-in. mortars 258,912 0 0
105-mm projectiles 23,064 74,014 0
155-mm projectiles 17,643 9,600 139,581
8-in. projectiles 0 16,026 0
Ton containers 108 0 0
M23 mines 0 0 44,131
M56 warheads 0 24 26
M55 rockets 0 42,738 35,636
Source: U.S. Army (199Sa).
numbers of gelled rockets. The same is expected to be
true at Anniston.
ALTERNATIVES FOR PROCESSING
GB M55 ROCKETS AT ANNISTON
Construction of the baseline incineration system fa-
cility at Anniston, Alabama. has been completed, and
the facility was undergoing systemization (preopera-
tional testing) as this report was being prepared. Sys-
temization includes conducting trial burns in which
agent surrogates are burned in the facility furnaces to
test their performance. The original plan for processing
rockets at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Fa-
cility (ANCDF) was the same as that used at TOCDF.
The Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization
(PMCD) estimated that about 20 percent of the 42,738
GB-filled M55 rockets stored at the Anniston site con-
tain gelled agent. The VX-filled M55 rockets stored at
Anniston number 35,636, but few of them, if any, are
believed to be gelled. The chemical agent and muni-
tions inventory at Anniston Army Depot consists of
661,529 items that contain 2,253 tons of agent (see
Table 1-1) (U.S. Army, 1995a).
The Army believes that more gelled rockets can be
safely processed per hour at ANCDF than the 1.0 or
1.6 per hour processed at TOCDF. This would de-
crease the total processing time and the risk of ex-
tended storage. A modified plan calls for increasing
the rate to 9.2 per hour. When the Army announced
that it was considering higher processing rates for
ANCDF than had been demonstrated at TOCDF, lo-
cal residents and governmental authorities expressed
concern that disposal risks might increase. The
Anniston site has more people living near it than any
other site. Both the previous Alabama governor and
9
the U.S. congressman who represented the Anniston
area (and who has since become the governor) em-
phatically indicated that no increase in risk as a result
of the processing plan modification would be toler-
ated (AP, 2002~.~ In this context, however, it is note-
worthy that all past NRC studies and other Army-
sponsored risk studies indicated that the risk to
workers and the public from continued storage of the
chemical agents and munitions is higher than the risk
from processing (NRC, 1994a; SAIC, 1998~.
The discussions in this report focus on technical con-
siderations and related issues in going from a gelled GB
M55 rocket processing rate of 1.0 or 1.6 rockets per hour
to 9.2 rockets per hour, which would be 6.4 rockets per
hour on the basis of an expected 70 percent availability
for the DFS. Other rates are reported to reflect the vari-
ability of operational experience to date in the process-
ing of both gelled and ungelled (drained) GB M55 rock-
ets. Drained rockets are defined as rockets from which at
least 95 percent of the agent has been removed.
STATEMENT OF TASK
Both the Army and the current governor of Alabama
asked the NRC to assess the processing plan for M55
rockets stored at Anniston. Specifically, the NRC
agreed to a statement of task whereby the NRC would
· Review data on the stability of stored M55 rock-
ets, including past findings and predictions re-
garding the storage and disposal processing risks
posed by these munitions.
iLetter from Congressman Robert R. Riley, 3rd District Ala-
bama, to Donald Siebenaler, National Research CounciL July 26,
2002.
OCR for page 10
10
· Review operational experience from the disposal
of GB and VX rockets at JACADS and GB rock-
ets at TOCDF. Obtain data and information suffi-
cient to compare the Army's original proposal for
disposal of M55 rockets at Anniston, Alabama,
with its more recent modified proposal for accel-
erated disposal.
Assess the potential of the modified proposal to
enable the Army to safely accelerate the schedule
for disposal of M55 rockets at Anniston.
· Assess the risk and hazard analyses associated
with the original and the modified proposals for
M55 rocket disposal at Anniston for implications
concerning potential effects on workers and the
general public.
.
The NRC produced this report in response to the
statement of task. While the report is specific to the
Anniston situation, the findings and recommendations
may be applicable at baseline incineration system fa-
cilities constructed at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and
Umatilla, Oregon.
ASSESSMENT OF PROCESSING GELLED GB M55 ROCKETS AT ANNISTON
ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT
The chapters following this introductory chapter are
as follows:
· Chapter 2 briefly reviews the available informa-
tion on assessments conducted by the Army of
the stability of M55 rockets in storage, with an
emphasis on the most recent Army report on this
subject (U.S. Army, 2002b).
Chapter 3 discusses the experience with M55
rocket processing at JACADS and TOCDF.
Chapter 4 examines the original and modified
plans for processing M55 rockets at ANCDF and
the risk and hazard evaluations associated with
both.
· Chapter 5 contains the committee's findings and
recommendations.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
baseline incineration
