FIGURE 1-1 Location and original size (percentage of original chemical agent stockpile) of eight continental U.S. storage sites. SOURCE: OTA, 1992.

by biodegradation will be used in the case of Pueblo, and neutralization followed by supercritical water oxidation in the case of Blue Grass.

This report focuses on the four incineration or “baseline” facilities that are operating, as well as the Chemical Agent Munitions Disposal System (CAMDS). Located at Deseret Chemical Depot (DCD) in Utah, CAMDS was a pilot facility for testing destruction processes and equipment. Not included in the study are ABCDF and the NECDF. These relatively small facilities have both completed their mission and have already been dismantled. Regulatory closure of ABCDF and NECDF has been completed. The destruction facilities for the Pueblo, Colorado, and Blue Grass, Kentucky, sites will be full-scale pilot plants. Their facility and process designs are completed, and the facilities are currently under construction under the auspices of a separate DoD program, the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program. These facilities likewise are not addressed in this study.

The four baseline incineration facilities in the continental United States—TOCDF, ANCDF, UMCDF, and PBCDF—are nearing the end of their missions. They will then go into closure operations in order to prepare the facility sites for future use. This report addresses the issues and challenges that should be focused on during the planning and the conducting of closure operations for these facilities. The TOCDF was the first of these facilities to begin agent disposal operations in August 1996. At the time this study was initiated, it was thought that it would be the first of these facilities to close. The Army initially intended to use the closure plans for TOCDF as the programmatic closure plans and the basis for closure plans for the other three facilities. That no longer appears to be the case. It appears now that PBCDF will be the first of the four facilities to undergo closure, with ANCDF most likely to be the second facility closed. The committee with the concurrence of the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), therefore, examined the available information for all four baseline facilities and CAMDS and discussed closure plans with representatives from each of these facilities.