Chemical Agent Munition Destruction System

Deseret. The incineration facility at Tooele provides a technically feasible alternative for destruction of 157 of the 174 non-stockpile items stored at Deseret. The other 17 items contain lewisite and are better suited for destruction at the Chemical Agent Munitions Disposal System (CAMDS). The Tooele CDF is scheduled to complete its stockpile mission in the fourth quarter of 2003, so it would be available to treat the non-stockpile items. Existing permits would need to be modified and the public would need to agree. 

Chemical weapons stored overseas were collected at Johnston Island, southwest of Hawaii, and destroyed by the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS), the first operational chemical demilitarization facility. JACADS began destruction activities in 1990 and completed processing of the 2,031 tons of chemical agent and the associated 412,732 munitions and containers in the overseas stockpile in November 2000 (U.S. Army, 2001a). 

The EDS is a mature technology for chemical agent destruction and has been demonstrated in the United States. It has been shown to be capable of processing the types of munitions that are associated with Requirement P-1. Agent is destroyed to acceptable levels. The system is transportable. 

Technically, the initial deflagration or detonation combined with thermal treatment and secondary combustion should preclude agent and other organics from being released into the atmosphere untreated. The bulk of the destruction of the chemical agent within the munition (on the order of 99.99 percent) is accomplished by thermal treatment within the system. The treatment of the offgas is intended to destroy the... 

The elapsed time for a munition destruction cycle will vary with the explosive and agent content of the munition. For conventional munitions, throughput of25-35 detonation cycles per hour has been demonstrated for explosive loads of 2 kg TNT-equivalent and can be greater for smaller explosive loads. Daily throughput includes the clean burning time. The throughput for chemical munitions will depend on whether the Dynasafe is operated as an open or a closed system, the number of munitions that are fed into the detonation chamber per cycle, and the number of cycles per hour. 

Shortly after the signing of the bilateral chemical weapons destruction agreement, the army began Operation Steel Box to remove all U.S. chemical weapons from Germany. The project started in July and finished in November 1990, with all the munitions safely moved to Johnston Atoll. The same year, the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Destruction System (JACADS) incinerator on the island became operational. The Tooele demilitarization plant was not operational until 1996. 

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