BYNUMThe first trial of the Army's chemical weapons incinerator wrapped up Saturday with optimistic officials looking ahead to the next series of tests.
Both plant managers and the environmental regulators who have been monitoring the past week's testing gave positive reports on the functioning of the liquid incinerator, which was built to burn nerve and blister agent siphoned out of weapons stored at the Anniston Army Depot.
The furnace underwent nine trial runs with a surrogate material more difficult to destroy than the agent.
"I am ecstatic over the performance of the system and the performance of the people who run it," said Tim Garrett, the project manager.
"The tell-tale sign," he continued, "is when you get back the reams of data that have been generated."
An enormous amount of analytical data must be compiled and reported to the state environmental agency, which then will decide whether the incinerator operated within the parameters of its permit. Though this decision could be months away, an official at the Alabama Department of Environmental Management said he doesn't expect any surprises.
"ADEM would know on the spot if they fail one of the runs," said Jim Grassiano, chief of the governmental facilities section.
The key test in determining whether the incinerator is up to snuff is in its destruction and removal efficiency. The liquid incinerator must destroy 99.9999 percent of a surrogate material chosen because of its high concentration of chlorine, which makes it difficult to destroy.
ADEM also will check the facility's ability to destroy dozens of metal oxides, and simply make sure the systems are operating well. Officials from the agency have been on-site during all of the runs.
"We're there in case there's some kind of anomaly, but we're also there to watch the protocols," Grassiano said.
The incinerator's operators did run into some maintenance problems, which, spokesman Mike Abrams said, took less than an hour to correct.
ADEM's Grassiano said the quick response to these problems, one of which involved a loose nozzle, indicated that the facility's system of checks and balances is working.
The testing finished a day ahead of schedule.
The work force at the incinerator will use the next few weeks to prepare another system, the deactivation furnace system, for its surrogate trial burns, which tentatively are scheduled for the third week in May. The DFS was built to destroy fuses, propellant, explosives and residual agent.
"I expect the DFS to be just as successful," Garrett said.
