Since the 1960s, the Army has done and continues to do an exceptional job in storing the chemical weapons at Anniston Army Depot. However, these weapons were not intended to be stored this long. Certainly they are not getting better with age even with the continued effort of dedicated Depot personnel who have to deal with leaking chemical munitions on a daily basis. Of primary concern are the M-55 rockets, which have the tendency to leak. Anniston’s M-55 rockets will be the first weapons to be destroyed in the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (ANCDF).The ANCDF utilizes a safe technology that has already destroyed more than 25 percent of the nation’s stockpile of chemical munitions at our facilities in Tooele, Utah, and on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
While operational, the Johnston Atoll work force safely disposed of 72,242 M-55 rockets and warheads with either nerve agent GB or VX. With disposal operations completed, the Johnston Atoll facility is in the process of being closed.
Our sister facility in Utah began chemical operations in August 1996. Since then, the work force has safely destroyed more than 44 percent of the chemical agent that was stored there and more than 82 percent of their munitions. Their success includes all 30,001 GB M-55 rockets. The M-55 GB rocket campaign was accomplished in accordance with the permit issued by the state of Utah, which allowed the facility to destroy 33 per hour of drainable rockets and one per hour of rockets with gelled or crystalline chemical agent. Since the Tooele facility was processing other munitions in conjunction with the M-55 rockets, it was not necessary to pursue a higher processing rate.
The Anniston stockpile has the potential to have more than 30 percent of its M-55 GB stockpile to be gelled or crystalline. Therefore, the ANCDF intends to demonstrate in the surrogate and agent trial burns that these munitions can be safely destroyed at a higher rate and well within the capability of the facility and the technology.
To make the community truly safe we need to move forward in destroying the stockpile. Our intention is consistent with an April 15, 1994 article by Carl Peterson, professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, formerly the chair for the National Research Council’s Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program. He wrote, “‘Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’ That’s good advice — especially when it comes to destroying this nation’s 25,000 tons of deadly nerve and mustard agents.”
Professor Peterson also wrote, “The Army has demonstrated the feasibility of this process at the stockpile site on Johnston Atoll ... The total risks to health and safety posed by these weapons should be minimized, and the greatest daily contributor to these risks is continued storage, not disposal by incineration...”
The dedicated work force of the ANCDF will perform their duties with safety as their number one priority and they, along with others, look forward to the day when the community can rest at ease because the stockpile no longer poses a threat to this community.
Timothy K. Garrett,
ANCDF Site Project Manager
Anniston
