The Army has announced a public comment session on its plans to test burn the nerve agent sarin in one of the furnaces at the chemical weapons incinerator.The public can offer input on the agent trial burns plans for the incinerator's metal parts furnace at a May 30 session, 6-8 p.m., at the Anniston Community Outreach Office, 11 E. 10th St.
The metal parts furnace, one of four at the facility, is designed to destroy non-explosive munitions parts found in landmines, artillery shells and bulk containers.
The incinerator's hazardous waste permit requires the trial burn plans to be submitted to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. However, the metal parts furnace is not scheduled to be used until the incinerator has destroyed the Anniston Army Depot's stockpile of GB- and VX-filled rockets, more than two years from now.
"We're getting our ducks in a row early," incinerator spokesman Mike Abrams said. "We made the managerial decision to get these plans to the state ahead of time."
Abrams added that no date has been set for the metal parts furnace's surrogate trial burns. These tests, which burn chemicals that are more difficult to destroy than the chemical agent, must precede any testing using actual agent, Abrams said.
Jim Grassiano, chief of the governmental facilities section at ADEM, said that by law any agent trial burns on the metal parts furnace would be at least a year off.
"I think that what they're trying to do is avoid scheduling problems," he said. "They will not start for at least a year."
Surrogate trial burns already have been completed on the incinerator's liquid incinerator furnace and are scheduled for the deactivation system furnace on May 27.
These two furnaces will be used to process the M55 rockets that will be the first munitions to be destroyed. The Army plans to conduct agent trial burns on them in September.
Incinerator officials are anticipating that both the metal parts furnace and the deactivation furnace system will have to destroy chemical agent that has gelled or crystallized over the years.
Though the Army insists that the gelled munitions can be safely handled by the facility, the plans clash with National Research Council recommendations that chemical agent should be handled separately from other waste streams.
