Baseline incineration

During the 1970s, the Army, as DOD s lead service in chemical matters, constructed and operated a pilot Chemical Agent Munitions Disposal System at the Tooele Army Depot in Utah. Using this pilot system, the 

In fiscal year 1981, the Army planned to build a disposal facility on Johnston Island, which would use the reverse assembly and incineration process to destroy chemical weapons stored on the island. Although the Army designed the Johnston disposal facility to destroy all types of munitions, it initially planned to equip the facility to destroy only one type of chemical munitions—the M55 rocket. Determining that the M55 rockets were in poor condition and were no longer militarily useful, the Army established an M55 rocket disposal program to destroy the nerve-agent-filled rockets stored at Johnston Island and five chemical storage sites in the continental United States. 

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In 1996 Congress enacted two laws, Public Law 104-201 (authorization) and Public Law 104-208 (appropriation), mandating that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) assess technology alternatives to the baseline incineration system developed by the Army for the demilitarization of assembled chemical weapons and that it conduct demonstration tests for at least two of them. The laws included the following stipulations ... 

All funds for the construction of baseline incineration facilities at Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Kentucky, and Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, Colorado, should be frozen until the effectiveness of alternative technologies and their ability to comply with safety and environmental requirements were reported to Congress. 

DoD should select a program manager who was not and never had been associated with the baseline incineration program. 

Unpacking of the munitions is performed in the unpack area (UPA), which is the same as that in the Army s baseline incineration system design (NRC, 1999). 

Area 100 uses munitions accessing devices from the Army s baseline incineration system disassembly operations wherever possible. The rocket disassembly operation is similar to the baseline system for dismantling the M55 rockets and separating the components. The projectile disassembly line is also very similar to that of the baseline system. However, a projectile washout system (PWS) has been added. 

The independent control for Area 100 is based on the reverse assembly machines of the baseline incineration system, which use an Allen Bradley PLC platform with direct operator control of the munitions loading, with solids output to Area 400 and liquid output to Area 200. Eco Logic plans to use equivalent Siemens PLCs. 

JACADS, the first fully integrated baseline incineration system for the disposal of stockpiled chemical agent and munitions, is located on Johnston Island, part of the Johnston Atoll, approximately 800 miles southwest of Hawaii. The facility occupies 130 acres of the 625-acre island and includes one large process building, with three furnaces and auxiliary equipment. 

Concurrent with the beginning of construction of the baseline incineration facility at JACADS in 1987, the Army requested that the National Research Council (NRC) review and evaluate the Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (CSDP) and provide scientific and technical advice and counsel. The NRC established the standing Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (Stockpile Committee), one of whose early reports was a study of operational verification testing at JACADS prior to the start of agent disposal operations. In the intervening years, the Stockpile Committee produced 27 reports on various aspects of the CSDP. ... 

Finding 5. Stockpile disposal facilities that do not use components of the baseline incineration system, or modified versions of it, lack a means to achieve thermal decontamination of secondary wastes during closure operations. 

A Modified Baseline Incineration Process for Mustard Projectiles at Pueblo Chemical Depot (August 2001)... 

Recommendation 2-4. The Army should conduct a detailed analysis of the cascade ventilation system and its performance at both the Aberdeen and Newport facilities to determine the potential for agent migration during normal operations, maintenance, and upset conditions. A formal, structured evaluation should be performed that includes (1) the use of a dynamic model of the ventilation system to determine the migration of both lethal and sublethal agent concentrations and (2) reported instances of agent migration at the Tooele and Johnston Atoll baseline incineration facilities. 

The Army must make provisions for storing, decontaminating, shipping, and disposing of nonprocess waste materials, including the plant itself, which must be treated as waste. In the baseline incineration system, contaminated wastes can be disposed of in the various incinerators. But comprehensive plans will have to be developed for the disposal of all contaminated waste streams at the Aberdeen and Newport facilities. For example, waste might be decontaminated with... 

A MODIFIED BASELINE INCINERATION PROCESS FOR MUSTARD PROJECTILES AT PUEBLO CHEMICAL DEPOT... 

Umatilla, Oregon. Although details differ at the five sites, the basic technology is the same (the baseline incineration system). At two other sites—Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana—alternative technologies to incineration are being implemented. Facilities for the final two sites— Pueblo, Colorado, and Blue Grass, Kentucky—are in the technology selection process. 

Baseline Incineration System, 8 Improved Processing of HD Munitions, 8... 

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