Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Disposal of Liquid Wastes from the Explosive Destruction System PDF Download

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309082692
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 76

View

Book Description
Chemical warfare materiel (CWM) encompasses diverse items that were used during 60 years of efforts by the United States to develop a capability for conducting chemical warfare. Non-Stockpile CWM (NSCWM) is materiel not included in the current U.S. inventory of chemical munitions and includes buried materiel, recovered materiel, components of binary chemical weapons, former production facilities, and miscellaneous materiel. Because NSCWM is stored or buried at many locations, the Army is developing transportable treatment systems that can be moved from site to site as needed. Originally, the Army planned to develop three transportable treatment systems for nonstockpile chemical materiel: the rapid response system (RRS), the munitions management device (MMD), and the explosive destruction system (EDS). This report supplements an earlier report that evaluated eight alternative technologies for destruction of the liquid waste streams from two of the U.S. Army's transportable treatment systems for nonstockpile chemical materiel: the RRS and the MMD. This report evaluates the same technologies for the destruction of liquid waste streams produced by the EDS and discusses the regulatory approval issues and obstacles for the combined use of the EDS and the alternative technologies that treat the EDS secondary waste streams. Although it focuses on the destruction of EDS neutralent, it also takes into consideration the ability of posttreatment technologies to process the more dilute water rinses that are used in the EDS following treatment with a reagent.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309072875
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 78

View

Book Description
Chemical warfare materiel (CWM) is a collection of diverse items that were used during 60 years of efforts by the United States to develop a capability for conducting chemical warfare. Nonstockpile CWM, which is not included in the current U.S. inventory of chemical munitions, includes buried materiel, recovered materiel, binary chemical weapons, former production facilities, and miscellaneous materiel. CWM that was buried in pits on former military sites is now being dug up as the land is being developed for other purposes. Other CWM is on or near the surface at former test and firing ranges. According to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which was ratified by the United States in April 1997, nonstockpile CWM items in storage at the time of ratification must be destroyed by 2007. The U.S. Army is the designated executive agent for destroying CWM. Nonstockpile CWM is being handled by the Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Program (NSCMP); stockpile CWM is the responsibility of the Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program. Because nonstockpile CWM is stored or buried in many locations, the Army is developing transportable disposal systems that can be moved from site to site as needed. The Army has plans to test prototypes of three transportable systems-the rapid response system (RRS), the munitions management device (MMD), and the explosive destruction system (EDS)-for accessing and destroying a range of nonstockpile chemical agents and militarized industrial chemicals. The RRS is designed to treat recovered chemical agent identification sets (CAIS), which contain small amounts of chemical agents and a variety of highly toxic industrial chemicals. The MMD is designed to treat nonexplosively configured chemical munitions. The EDS is designed to treat munitions containing chemical agents with energetics equivalent to three pounds of TNT or less. These munitions are considered too unstable to be transported or stored. A prototype EDS system has recently been tested in England by non-stockpile program personnel. Although originally proposed for evaluation in this report, no test data were available to the committee on the composition of wastes from the EDS. Therefore, alternative technologies for the destruction of EDS wastes will be discussed in a supplemental report in fall 2001. Treatment of solid wastes, such as metal munition bodies, packing materials, and carbon air filters, were excluded from this report. Review and Evaluation of the Army Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Disposal Program: Disposal of Neutralent Wastes evaluates the near-term (1999-2005) application of advanced (nonincineration) technologies, such as from the Army's Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment Program and the Alternative Technologies and Approaches Project, in a semi-fixed, skid-mounted mode to process Rapid Response System, Munitions Management Device, and Explosive Destruction System liquid neutralization wastes.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309184002
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

View

Book Description
This report examines seven disposal technologies being considered by the U.S. government as alternative methods to the process of incineration for destroying mortars, rockets, land mines, and other weapons that contain chemical warfare agents, such as mustard gas. These weapons are considered especially dangerous because they contain both chemical warfare agent and explosive materials in an assembled package that must be disassembled for destruction. The study identifies the strengths and weaknesses and advantages and disadvantages of each technology and assesses their potential for full-scale implementation.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309177480
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 135

View

Book Description
The Army's ability to meet public and congressional demands to destroy expeditiously all of the U.S. declared chemical weapons would be enhanced by the selection and acquisition of appropriate explosive destruction technologies (EDTs) to augment the main technologies to be used to destroy the chemical weapons currently at the Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD) in Kentucky and the Pueblo Chemical Depot (PCD) in Colorado. The Army is considering four EDTs for the destruction of chemical weapons: three from private sector vendors, and a fourth, Army-developed explosive destruction system (EDS). This book updates earlier evaluations of these technologies, as well as any other viable detonation technologies, based on several considerations including process maturity, process efficacy, process throughput, process safety, public and regulatory acceptability, and secondary waste issues, among others. It also provides detailed information on each of the requirements at BGAD and PCD and rates each of the existing suitable EDTs plus the Army's EDS with respect to how well it satisfies these requirements.

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309477352
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 133

View

Book Description
The U.S. military has a stockpile of approximately 400,000 tons of excess, obsolete, or unserviceable munitions. About 60,000 tons are added to the stockpile each year. Munitions include projectiles, bombs, rockets, landmines, and missiles. Open burning/open detonation (OB/OD) of these munitions has been a common disposal practice for decades, although it has decreased significantly since 2011. OB/OD is relatively quick, procedurally straightforward, and inexpensive. However, the downside of OB and OD is that they release contaminants from the operation directly into the environment. Over time, a number of technology alternatives to OB/OD have become available and more are in research and development. Alternative technologies generally involve some type of contained destruction of the energetic materials, including contained burning or contained detonation as well as contained methods that forego combustion or detonation. Alternatives for the Demilitarization of Conventional Munitions reviews the current conventional munitions demilitarization stockpile and analyzes existing and emerging disposal, treatment, and reuse technologies. This report identifies and evaluates any barriers to full-scale deployment of alternatives to OB/OD or non-closed loop incineration/combustion, and provides recommendations to overcome such barriers.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309050464
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

View

Book Description
The U.S. Army's chemical stockpile is aging and gradually deteriorating. Its elimination has public, political, and environmental ramifications. The U.S. Department of Defense has designated the Department of the Army as the executive agent responsible for the safe, timely, and effective elimination of the chemical stockpile. This book provides recommendations on the direction the Army should take in pursuing and completing its Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309084520
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 124

View

Book Description
The main approach adopted by the U.S. Army for destruction of all declared chemical weapon materiel (CWM) is incineration. There has been considerable public opposition to this approach, however, and the Army is developing a mix of fixed site and mobile treatment technologies to dispose of non-stockpile CWM. To assist in this effort, the Army requested NRC to review and evaluate these technologies, and to assess its plans for obtaining regulatory approval for and to involve the public in decisions about the application of those technologies. This book presents an assessment of non-stockpile treatment options and the application of these systems to the non-stockpile inventory, of regulatory and permitting issues, and of the role of the public.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309180511
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 128

View

Book Description
The Chemical Weapons Convention requires, among other things, that the signatories to the conventionâ€"which includes the United Statesâ€"destroy by April 29, 2007, or as soon possible thereafter, any chemical warfare materiel that has been recovered from sites where it has been buried once discovered. For several years the United States and several other countries have been developing and using technologies to dispose of this non-stockpile materiel. To determine whether international efforts have resulted in technologies that would benefit the U.S. program, the U.S. Army asked the NRC to evaluate and compare such technologies to those now used by the United States. This book presents a discussion of factors used in the evaluations, summaries of evaluations of several promising international technologies for processing munitions and for agent-only processing, and summaries of other technologies that are less likely to be of benefit to the U.S. program at this time.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309102030
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 128

View

Book Description
The Chemical Weapons Convention requires, among other things, that the signatories to the conventionâ€"which includes the United Statesâ€"destroy by April 29, 2007, or as soon possible thereafter, any chemical warfare materiel that has been recovered from sites where it has been buried once discovered. For several years the United States and several other countries have been developing and using technologies to dispose of this non-stockpile materiel. To determine whether international efforts have resulted in technologies that would benefit the U.S. program, the U.S. Army asked the NRC to evaluate and compare such technologies to those now used by the United States. This book presents a discussion of factors used in the evaluations, summaries of evaluations of several promising international technologies for processing munitions and for agent-only processing, and summaries of other technologies that are less likely to be of benefit to the U.S. program at this time.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309181577
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 108

View

Book Description
The U.S. Army's Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel program is responsible for dismantling former chemical agent production facilities and destroying recovered chemical materiel. In response to congressional requirements, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in 2003, recommended new airborne exposure limits (AELs) to protect workforce and public health during operations to destroy this materiel. To assist in meeting these recommended limits, the U.S. Army asked the NRC for a review of its implementation plans for destruction of production facilities at the Newport Chemical Depot and the operation of two types of mobile destruction systems. This report presents the results of that review. It provides recommendations on analytical methods, on airborne containment monitoring, on operational procedures, on the applicability of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and on involvement of workers and the public in implementation of the new AELs.