Explosive Waste Remediation

Some of the more difficult environmental problems facing the Department of Defense (DOD) include (1) chemical weapons destruction, (2) explosive waste remediation, and (3) unexploded ordnance clearance and extraction. It is conceivable that 50 to 100 billion will be spent by DOD for these three programs, offering unusual opportunities for environmental engineering and related firms. 

Chemical Weapons Destruction and Explosive Waste/Unexploded Ordnance Remediation, Editor Noyes, R., Noyes, Park Ridge, NJ, 1996... 

Thomas Stock, Chemical and Biological Weapons Developments and Proliferation , SIPRI Yearbook 1993 World Armaments and Disarmament (Oxford Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 259-292 Robert Noyes, Chemical Weapons Destruction and Explosive Waste/Unexploded Ordnance Remediation (Westwood, NJ Noyes Publication, 1996) National Research Council, Alternatives to Commercial Incineration of CAIS , in Review of the Army Non-Stockpile Material Disposal Program Disposal of Chemical Agent Identification Sets (Washington, DC National Academy Press, 1999), pp. 75-94. 

One program is the ongoing effort by the Department of Defense (DOD) to demilitarize unneeded portions of its massive stockpile of ammunition and explosives. The trend is away from open buming/open detonation (OB/OD) and toward new demilitarization technologies allowing resource recovery and recycling. The second program is the remediation of ordnance and explosives waste (OEW) from both active and formerly used defense sites (FUDS). 

In 1988, the Army began a series of demonstration studies at the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant to determine the effectiveness of composting explosives-contaminated soils. In the initial study, static-pile composting required 153 days to remediate soils contaminated with just 3% explosive waste by volume. 

Based on these results, the Army determined that static-pile composting would not be cost effective for remediating large volumes of explosives waste. 

CHEMICAL WEAPONS DESTRUCTION AND EXPLOSIVE WASTE/UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE REMEDIATION... 

Chemical weapons destruction and explosive waste/unexploded ordnance remediation Robert Noyes. 

Reductive Remediation of Nonhalogenated Molecules. Na/NHa treatments can also destroy nonhalogenated hazardous conqraunds. Three classes pollutants will be mentioned here polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PNAs), nitro- and nitrate-type explosive wastes and chemical warfare agents. The treatment of neat sanq>les of PNAs leads to destmction efficiencies of 99.99% for many of these conq)ounds including such examples as acenaphthene, benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[g,h,l]perylene, chrysene, fluorandiene, fluorine, naphdialene and phenanthrene. With the exception of naphthalene and anthracene, conq)lex product mixtures are formed. Radical anion formation followed by protonation occurs sequentially leading to dihydro, tetrahydro and further reduced products (see Scheme 3). Depending on the reaction conditions, dimerization of intermediate radicals can occur to give dimers in various states of reduction. 

Explosive/blasting Confined space entry Asbestos abatement Hazardous waste remediation... 

Half-lives span a very wide range (Table 17.5). Consider strontium-90, for which the half-life is 28 a. This nuclide is present in nuclear fallout, the fine dust that settles from clouds of airborne particles after the explosion of a nuclear bomb, and may also be present in the accidental release of radioactive materials into the air. Because it is chemically very similar to calcium, strontium may accompany that element through the environment and become incorporated into bones once there, it continues to emit radiation for many years. About 10 half-lives (for strontium-90, 280 a) must pass before the activity of a sample has fallen to 1/1000 of its initial value. Iodine-131, which was released in the accidental fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, has a half-life of only 8.05 d, but it accumulates in the thyroid gland. Several cases of thyroid cancer have been linked to iodine-131 exposure from the accident. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24 ka (24000 years). Consequently, very long term storage facilities are required for plutonium waste, and land contaminated with plutonium cannot be inhabited again for thousands of years without expensive remediation efforts. 

Removal actions are short-term cleanup actions that usually address problems only at the surface of a site. They are conducted in response to an emergency situation (e.g., to avert an explosion, to clean up a hazardous waste spill, or to stabilize a site until a permanent remedy can be found). Removal actions are limited to 12 months duration or 2 million in expenditures, although in certain cases these limits may be extended. Removals may occur at any point in time after the PA has been conducted. 

ICI Explosives Environmental Company (ICIEEC) has developed a rotary kiln incinerator for the treatment of explosives and other hazardons wastes. The purpose of the technology is to offer an alternative to open detonation for remediating materials contaminated with explosives and reactive materials. The ICIEEC facility in loplin, Missouri, is the only commercial incinerator in the United States that regnlarly accepts U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Hazard Class 1.1 materials. The technology is commercially available. 

Many in situ soil and groundwater Fenton remediation processes have been commercialized, including the treatment of gasoline, waste oil, per-chloroethylene, chlorophenols, explosives and munitions, chlorinated hydrocarbons, and nitrification inhibitors. 

Fermentation is also used to treat industrial chemical or organic waste. The principle is very similar to the described anaerobic sludge treatment. That means that the organic material is converted to methane. Examples include waste containing cotton, rubber, plastics, fats, explosives, and detergents. The waste can be transferred to special treatment plants or be treated in situ in the open field where the waste was buried. Open-field microbiological treatment of spills or deposits of hazardous chemicals is a potentially attractive and inexpensive remediation method and has attracted a lot of research attention. So far, however, only a few examples have been successful. 

The opposition to the use of incineration is described in detail in a prior NRC report (NRC, 2002). Reasons for it include the perceived instability of the process, the potential for explosion, and the potential for unplanned releases of undesirable compounds. This public opposition to incineration is also evident in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency s Superfund program for cleanup of hazardous waste sites, where both on-site and off-site incineration were selected less frequently as treatment technologies as the years passed (EPA, 2004). For example, on-site incineration was selected four, seven, six, and four times in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990, respectively, for source control for remedial... 

Aqueous-phase bioreactors provide good process control, can be configured in several treatment trains to treat a variety of wastes, and potentially can achieve very low contaminant concentrations. A drawback of bioreactor treatment is that, unlike composting systems which bind contaminants to humic material, bioreactors accumulate the products of biotransformation. In addition, bioreactors have been shown to remediate explosives only at laboratory scale, so the cost of full-scale bioreactor treatment is unknown. Full-scale bioreactors will have to incorporate a variety of safety features that will add to their total cost. 

Approaches for the remediation of federal facility sites contaminated with explosive or radioactive wastes, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., 1993. 

Reference soil was collected in a reference site in Elorence (Italy). Real soil samples were collected in the Associated National Chemical Companies (ACNA) site (Cengio, SV, Italy). ACNA is a closed organic chemical industrial factory active since 1882 with the production of explosives (nitroglycerin, dynamite, and trinitrotoluene), paints, nitric and sulphuric acids, phenols, and amines, with serious levels of contamination of soil and surface waters, where a remediation and bonification plan started in 1999. The serious enviromnental contamination of this area determined its inclusion in the list of national priorities for enviromnental reclamation. The sampling was performed from the soil layers (0-30 cm) in a specific ACNA site, called hill n°5, on March 2003. The hill was made of waste from the industry accumulated during the years and was divided into four zones zone 1 with low contamination level zone 2 with pseudoreference zone 3 with moderate pollution level, and zone 4 with high ecological risk. 

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