The Army Tuesday completed the second round of testing surrogate materials on its chemical weapons incinerator.The week-long trial burns focused on the deactivation furnace system, which was designed to burn explosives, fuses, propellant and residual agent. While there was no detailed information on how the facility fared, an Army spokesman was optimistic that the furnace will meet the emissions standards set by state and federal regulators.
"Everything seemed to go as well as it did with the liquid incinerator," said Mike Abrams, referring to the first furnace, which was tested in March.
The Army missed its self-imposed deadline to report to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management on the liquid incinerator, which will burn nerve and blister agent drained from munitions. Abrams said the report will be submitted to ADEM by the state-imposed deadline of June 24.
Abrams said the delay in reporting came from the large amount of data to be processed and from challenges in creating a new document, some of which won't cause a problem in their creation of the second report.
"We anticipate the second report will be a little less complicated," he said.
Abrams said he expects a report on the second round of testing in about a month and a half.
