The Army tells us the following incident could not happen at the Anniston incinerator. But we have to tell the story of a morning three years ago in Tooele, Utah, because there are other issues at stake, including the fact that in April of next year, the first of more than 2,400 tons of deadly nerve agent will be fed into the furnaces. We want to know everything there is to know.There was nothing special about the morning of March 30, 1998, at the chemical weapons incinerator in Tooele, Utah. All was quite normal. Technicians were overseeing the complex but routine steps that led up to draining liquid nerve agent from MC-1 bombs and the incineration of the agent and the bombs.
But deep into the night, just before 4 a.m., one of the technicians, working with a robotic arm, began having trouble draining lethal sarin (also known as GB) nerve agent from one of the bombs set to be incinerated. The robotic arm, using a straw-like probe, repeatedly came up empty when it tried to suck more sarin out of the bomb. Workers were perplexed because indicators continued to show that the agent in the bomb was above the amount allowed.
The step was crucial because strict guidelines dictated that no more than 11 pounds of the agent could be left in an MC-1 bomb when it was sent into the metal parts furnace of the incinerator. The rest, more than 200 pounds, had to be drained off and burned separately. Failure to follow the guidelines, studies had shown, could cause the incinerator to malfunction, increasing the risk of nerve agent escaping into the atmosphere.
Fully aware of the rules, the technicians continued trying to drain the MC-1, but unknown to them, an 80-pound clump of nerve agent had solidified in the bottom of the bomb. The probe wasn't sucking anything out because all the liquid was gone. At 3:46 a.m. that morning, officials at the incinerator, despite indications that the bomb far exceeded the amount of agent allowed to be burned, fed the MC-1 bomb into the metal parts furnace.
The result was immediate and frightening. The temperatures inside the furnace rocketed, causing the incinerator to shut down automatically. Water was flushed onto the bomb to try to cool the temperature. As this was happening, an alarm sounded in a duct between the incinerator and a smokestack leading to the outside. A gauge attached to the alarm registered 511 times the amount of nerve agent that is deemed safe to release into the atmosphere. The actual amount could have been much higher as 511 is the maximum amount the gauge will register.Additional alarms in the smokestack, however, did not sound.
Up until this point just about everyone involved in this the Army, the contractor at Tooele and Utah's state department of environmental management, as well as numerous critics of the military's incineration program agree about what happened.
Their conclusion: Someone made a huge mistake at Tooele that morning. Someone ignored strict guidelines and fed way too much lethal nerve gas into the incinerator.
It is from this point on, however, that opinions differ. Simply put, the Army insists there was no release of nerve gas, citing, among other things, the fact the stack alarms did not sound. Opponents insist there was a release, or at least it cannot be proved there there was not.
The truth is, we may never know if agent was released at Tooele on that night. But here is the question for the Army: Could what happened at Tooele in March 1998 happen here? "Absolutely not," says Tim Garrett, the Army's site manager at Anniston's incinerator. "First of all there was no escape of agent at Tooele in 1998. The temperature inside the furnace was high enough to destroy any agent, so none got out. There was no trace of agent, none showed up anywhere."
Garrett stresses that devices known as DAAMS tubes, a sort of filter which is used by the Army to confirm or dismiss the presence of nerve agents, all tested negative after the incident.
"They tested all of the DAAMS tubes," Garrett said, "that were used that night and all of them came up negative.
"But aside from that, you simply cannot compare what goes on at Tooele with what will go on here. In Utah they work with a type of munitions, the MC-1 bomb. We don't even have any of those so we won't have to go through that kind of draining process with the agent we have here, except the mustard gas which is much less complicated to drain.
"But I must tell you that we have made changes since that incident," he said. "We have made a lot of mechanical improvements, including a computer system that, if all procedures are not done correctly, will not allow the process to move forward. It overrides any human error.
"Even if there was a malfunction here as there was in Tooele, it would be impossible for any agent to escape. We have back-up systems that are not in place at Tooele. We have a huge carbon filtration system that is designed to catch anything that could possibly escape from the furnace."
Other incidents
The 1998 incident is important because of the negligence that occurred and because of the high reading on the alarm. But this is not the only incident concerning incineration. In 1999 the Tooele incinerator did have a confirmed leak of sarin gas. While only a small amount of agent was released 18 times the amount allowed into the atmosphere as opposed to the 511 registered in 1998 and dissipated, the Army claims, within feet of the smokestack, the fact that officials at the incinerator took hours to notify local officials raises questions.
On the morning of Sept. 15 1999, in Umatilla, Ore., about 30 construction workers building an incinerator designed to burn 6.6 million pounds of nerve agent were overcome with something that caused them to stagger out of their work site coughing, vomiting and fighting to control their bowels.
The workers, who have since filed suit in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., argue they were hit that morning with nerve agent which is stored near the construction area.
The Army claims, instead, the workers were overcome with fumes from paint or epoxy. Again, we may never know, but the Army's handling of the crisis afterwards, including their failure to report positive indications of chemical agent at the construction site, reinforces our need to insist on full disclosure at all times.
Incineration proponents argue that the Oregon incident as well as frequently leaking chemical weapons at the Anniston Army Depot last November Army officials took an unbelievable 12 days to report the discovery of 21 leaking chemical weapons actually boost the argument for incineration. The longer it sits around, in short, the more dangerous it becomes.
Why, though, should we care about the troubling 1998 incident, something that happened a good while ago in a far away place? No one died and tighter guidelines and fail-safe procedures have been implemented since. The Army, in essence, seems to have gotten a handle on the mechanics, if not the public relations.
That's nice, but any trouble at any chemical dump anywhere gives us reason to ask questions. After all, there is a $1 billion incinerator in our midst constructed to burn away 7 percent of the nation's stockpile of VX, sarin and mustard gas. We want to know about Utah and Umatilla and any other place because we want to make sure that the kind of inexcusable behavior that occurred in Utah will not happen here.
Truth and complete openess is paramount. So we don't want to see any incomplete reporting such as the initial statement concerning the 1998 incident from the Army, for example, said alarms didn't sound in the smokestack. That was only part of the truth. The rest, of course, is that an alarm did sound elsewhere.
Some of those concerns will be aired on Wednesday of this week when all aspects of the incineration issue will be discussed during hearings before the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in Washington, D.C. These hearings, which will feature officials from the Army and specialists in the field of chemical demilitarization as well as opponents of incineration, will no doubt cover the 1998 Utah incident as well as the others. It should be a learning experience for everyone.
Utah 1998
The 1998 incident is a story that naturally just like the other incidents attracts and involves people standing at opposite ends of the incineration argument. Tim Garrett and the Army and every contractor involved have an enormous amount of money and energy invested. Others, including such organizations as the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, which champions neutralization of chemical weapons, have long tried to stop incineration from becoming a reality and therefore also have a lot invested. Both, it is safe to say, have a dog in this fight.
So this newspaper put the question of the 1998 Utah incident to three scientists. Using documents authored by the Army, the Chemical Weapons Working Group and testimony that emerged during a federal court trial involving an effort to shut down the Tooele incinerator (the case is currently on appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver), The Star asked the scientists: Were mistakes made in Tooele that night, and was there or was there not a release of chemical nerve agent into the atmosphere?
Dr. Matthew Meselson, a professor of chemistry at Harvard, took two weeks to study a stack of reports on the incident sent to him by The Star. He was chosen because he has worked in chemical demilitarization since 1963 and is recognized as one of the leading experts in the field. Meselson is also a member of he National Academy of Sciences and co-director of a project called the Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons Armament and Arms Limitations.
"You may never settle the question of whether there was a release of nerve agent into the atmosphere in March of 1998 in Tooele," Meselson said. "The important thing is to make sure that it doesn't happen again. What can I say with certainty? That they had a big problem that night. In their reports they used a bunch of fancy words that basically said someone made a huge mistake. Why not just say that? All they had to do was weigh the bomb, which apparently they did but ignored the reading. There were clear defects in their procedure and in their handling of the DAAMS tubes. They made it so it was impossible to analyze the DAAMS for agent. I was frankly very surprised by that."
Richard Hamner of Huntsville, was also sent a copy of the documents. He has a doctorate in mechanical engineering and is a specialist in fluid mechanics including how vapors react in a column. He is retired now, but used to work for the engineering company Teledyne-Brown, where he was involved in the proposal plan for the incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot.
"I believe the Army is not telling the whole truth and that the sensors failed in the smokestack," said Hamner. "I have worked with sensors for a long time. I know them, believe me. I do not believe that the substance that went up that stack was benign. It is simple isn't it? The furnace shut down and the nerve agent was not burned. Where did it go? It went up and out. But the truth is, how are you going to prove it?"
The Star also forwarded a packet of the documents to a chemical engineer, who, because he is employed with a company contracted with the military on an incineration project and fears retribution for his criticism, wished to remain anonymous.
"The operators of that plant violated their permit and they probably released agent," says the chemical engineer, who has more than five years' experience disposing of chemical agents. But this source, who also developed monitoring systems that detect chemical agents such as the ones used in Utah, said "the question is, was that release serious? By definition, the answer is no. I say that because there were no dead animals, and no dead humans. The CWWG (Chemical Weapons Working Group) says there was a major release. They don't know that for sure. But here's the thing: The Army cannot say there was not a release. They don't know it either and they can't prove it. But I can tell you one thing for sure: The system totally broke down that night and the Army won't admit it."
The CWWG and its director, Craig Williams, have long opposed incineration as a method of getting rid of chemical weapons. The group instead favors chemical neutralization, a technology that is still being developed, which would turn the nerve agents into harmless material without having to burn it.Williams disagrees with the Army's assessment of the incident and takes issue with its record of being open with the public.
"Independent experts reviewing the incident agree there is no basis upon which PMCD (the Office of the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization, the department within the Army that oversees the incinerator facilities) could conclude a release of nerve agent had not occurred at their Utah plant on March 30, 1998.
"Army spokespeople were quoted repeatedly in the press denying any release of agent. Their press release states, '
Chemical agent was ruled out as a cause for the duct ACAMS Alarm.'"
ACAMS (the Automatic Continuous Monitoring System) is the Army's alarm and monitoring system at incinerators.
"The official Unusual Occurrence Report ... stated, 'Common stack ACAMS 701 A, B, and C did not detect the presence of agent at any time. This was validated by analysis of the DAAMS tubes at that location.'"
"However," Williams said, "the official control room log at Tooele directly contradicts the PMCD press statements and Unusual Occurrence Report. It clearly indicates that the DAAMS tubes the Army's PMCD relied on to confirm no agent were not the tubes in the stack at the time of the incident. In fact, there were no tubes in the stack during the incident at all, as noted in the Plant Shift Manager's log."
Williams went on to say that "the Analytical Branch Chief on duty at the time of the incident stated under oath in Federal Court that he did not know if the DAAMS tubes in place in the smokestack at 0346 on March 30, 1998, were ever analyzed.
"The Tooele Assistant Plant Manager testified, 'There was no tracking of those (DAAMS located in the stacks) because that station had not alarmed.'
"There was no tracking, of course," Williams says, "because there were no DAAMS tubes there in the first place. How can you track something that isn't there?"
To exit from this argument, we might be wise to remember the words of Matt Meselson: "The important thing is to make sure that it doesn't happen again." Or to be more exact: to make sure no one in this community is harmed.
That, of course, is the responsibility of the Army. But given the fact that some questions linger about past incidents, we would be foolish not to be demand openess on an issue as sensitive as this.
For his part Tim Garrett says that if anything unusual happens at the Anniston incinerator he will not delay in revealing the whole story.
We appreciate that, but it doesn't mean this community should be any less diligent.
