"Incineration is the only proven technology," said James Bacon, the program manager for chemical demilitarization.Incineration opponents say there is time to consider and employ alternatives as Anniston's chemical weapons incinerator prepares to come on line in the spring of 2002. The Army Chemical Weapons Assessment (ACWA) program, which researches alternative methods of weapons destruction, has selected four technologies for further study and testing.
"The perception is that these are in the future, that it's still at the laboratory level," said Mike Parker, the head of ACWA. "But these are applications of mature industrial technology."
All of the technologies can use the existing incinerator's footprint, Parker said, and 40 percent of the incinerator's equipment can be used with alternative methods. The costs for these alternatives are roughly the same as the costs of incineration. The alternative methods are nearing the pilot stage, at which point their components will be assembled, tested and operated on a smaller scale.
"Putting them together in an effective operating system is where the challenge would lie," Parker said. "There is always a risk when you proceed with something that up to that point has been tested on paper."
None of the alternative technologies has undergone health, environmental or quantitative risk assessments.
According to studies by the National Research Council, the technologies still are not ready for the full destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles, and they will need many more studies. The National Research Council is an independent, nonprofit committee of scientists that serves as an advisor to Congress on scientific and technological issues.
"The committee reiterates that none of the unit operations has been integrated into a complete system," a December 2000 National Research Council report said. "The lack of integration remains a major concern as a significant obstacle to full-scale implementation."
ACWA is building test plants in Aberdeen, Md., and Newport, Ind. If successful, the Army may use alternative technologies to destroy nerve agent at depots in Pueblo, Colo., and Richmond, Ky., Parker said.
But if those pilot plants prove successful, it still would take years for the Army to receive an environmental permit to build a pilot plant in Anniston, said Gerald Hardy, head of the land division for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
"Given that it hasn't been proven somewhere else, that may add some time to the review," Hardy said.
Before the Army could begin building it, the Anniston chemical weapons incinerator needed seven years of review to receive a permit. Hardy said that permit process was streamlined because ADEM officials could look at the body of knowledge gained from the incinerators in Utah and Johnston Atoll.
Beginning the process again for an alternative technology would mean the Army would have to maintain the chemical weapons stockpile longer.
Army officials say they fear an accident and the threat that the aging stockpile poses to the public. Leaking munitions have become a weekly occurrence at the Anniston Army Depot, and in recent weeks workers discovered a severely deteriorated mustard agent round.
There isn't time to wait for alternative technologies to mature, say incineration proponents. According to the National Research Council, all of the four chosen alternatives have serious glitches.
After reviewing tests of supercritical water oxidation at a General Atomics plant in Texas, the committee concluded that the technology had not proven its ability to destroy all of the nerve agent and its stability over long periods of time, as well as the ability to handle large capacities. Additionally, supercritical water oxidation causes much of the equipment to corrode and subsequently clog.
During the testing in Texas, an oxygen line leaked and caused a fire, said James Bacon, program manager for chemical demilitarization.
While a larger pilot plant for supercritical water oxidation is slated for Newport, Ind., the National Research Council said it "will place severe demands on immature technology."
A second alternative technology would have the same problems as it is based on supercritical water oxidation with an additional step at the end.
A third technology, biodegradation, uses microbes to feed on the nerve agent after it has been neutralized through chemical processes. It is much like a sewage treatment plant, Parker said. While it has proved successful in treating mustard agent, "Biotreatment for nerve agent (VX and GB) is not as efficient as we would like," he said.
Anniston's stockpile of chemical weapons contains mustard, GB and VX agents.
Parker said a fourth technology, the Silver II method, is perhaps the most promising. The National Research Council questioned whether Silver II could be used on the large scale required to destroy stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Those concerns "are serious enough to challenge the ultimate ability of this process to perform at the required level," it said.
None of the alternative methods are free from hazardous waste. The National Research Council has said that the components of the waste as well as any unprocessed nerve agent needs studying before any of the alternative technologies can progress to processing chemical stockpiles. On average, these methods produce two pounds of waste per pound of nerve agent destroyed.
Tim Garrett, the Army's project manager for the Anniston incinerator, said Anniston's chemical weapons incinerator produces approximately the same amount of waste.
And like incineration, alternative methods are not closed-loop systems, free from emissions and potential contamination.
"There is any amount of gas, liquids and solids that come out of these processes," said David Christian, an Anniston architect and incineration opponent. Christian served on an advisory board to the ACWA program.
Most methods leave an inorganic salt, tainted by toxic heavy metals as well as some gas and water discharge. As the majority of the waste is solid, Christian said it is more manageable than emissions from an incinerator.
Since the Army doesn't monitor actual emissions from the incinerator, Christian said, "The final analysis of that system is not known at this point."
Even if the alternative methods overcome further testing, studying and skepticism, Christian said he sees little hope for the Army employing a new technology in Anniston, as it has invested $1 billion in the incinerator.
On Friday, the Army held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility and announced that the construction is now complete.
Perhaps an alternative will become feasible in the future, said George Smith, an Anniston resident who served as Christian's counterpart on the ACWA board.
"As a citizen, I must look to see if there is something better," he said. "And the alternatives may turn out to be just that. But, meanwhile, we have an aging stockpile, we have leakers, and we have the risk to the community of continued storage. Despite the rhetoric, incineration is a way that's proven and works."
