Army: Waste to be treated on site

 Hermiston Herald
August 20, 2002
Army: Waste to be treated on site
By Frank Lockwood (F. Ellsworth Lockwood, now of Eltopia, Washington)
Staff writer


HERMISTON - The Department of Environmental Quality will seek permit modifications "dovetailing" with the Army's reassurances that a liquid hazardous waste, called brine, will be treated on site at the depot - not shipped to Washington or elsewhere, a DEQ spokesman says. Critics have long worried that the incineration of chemical weapons at Umatilla would create amounts of liquid waste too great or too toxic to be processed using BRA, or the Brine Reduction Area systems, and that Umatilla, like Tooele, Utah, would abandon plans for using BRA technology, in favor of shipping the material to hazardous waste sites, leaving a legacy of
contamination.

But plans to operate the Brine Reduction Area have not changed for Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, regardless of what may be done at other chemical agent disposal sites around the country, Umatilla Chemical Disposal Facility Project Manager Don Barclay said at Thursday evening's meeting of the Citizens Advisory Commission.

"Each site is an individual site with individual needs," said depot Mary Binder.

Mid-August news articles had suggested the Army might renege on its plan for handling waste water on site at Umatilla, instead trucking it off site, perhaps through Tri-Cities en route to Kent, Wash. Presently, UMCDF is temporarily sending brine to Kent, during surrogate testing, because the BRA is not yet up and running.

As early as May, environmental groups said they feared that the transportation of liquid wastes would not stop with the end of surrogate burn trials at the depot, and that the Brine Reduction Area technology would be left idle.

Joseph Keating, on behalf of the group, GASP, testified during a July 26 hearing before the Environmental Quality Commission, saying, "We agree with the Umatilla Tribes' concern about the Army plan to eliminate the Brine Reduction Area."

The Brine Reduction Area was built to process liquid wastes generated by incineration at UMCDF. The BRA reduces wastes to a salt-like substance.

According to GASP, the Army has known about BRA "problems" since testing and operations at Johnston Atoll and Tooele, Utah incinerators. If the Army did discontinue use of the the BRA, it would be the second major part of the Umatilla incinerator to be abandoned, the first being the dunnage incinerators.

Dunnage incinerators were originally planned for disposing of such things as wooden pallets, but the Army later reported a plan to modify other incinerators to handle that waste. Army spokesmen say they found better ways to treat the dunnage. Detractors claim the "DUN" was simply "inoperable."


Be that as it may, Wayne Thomas, DEQ program administrator, said Thursday that his agency will seek a permit modification to make it clear that the liquid brine waste is to be treated on site, not shipped away, and PMCD's site project manager Don Barclay said the Army had already hired the crews to operate the facility.

Confusion may have arisen because of BRA decisions at other chemical weapons disposal sites, Barclay said, but those decisions do not change the plan for UMCDF.

Concerns increased when Barclay could not "absolutely promise" that no liquid brine would ever be shipped off site at UMCDF once surrogate burns were complete and real agent incineration had begun.

Unforeseen events could eventually dictate off-site disposal, Barclay admitted, but that is neither the plan nor the intent. If the incinerators generate more waste than can be stored and treated at the depot, however, under the present permits the incinerator operators might, indeed, be able to seek another alternative. In Tooele, the Army made the decision to ship brine water off site, because using the BRA system was considered ineffective and costly.

Binder said that some wastewater has been processed at Johnston Atoll, however and that this is not new technology, a claim that critics dispute. The Umatilla facility does have double the storage capability of Johnston Atoll - four 40,000-gallon tanks to JA's two, and three BRA driers compared with JA's two.

"Based on all that we know, we believe that we will be able to" process on site all of the waste water brine that UMCDF generates, by using the BRA facility, Binder said. 


http://www.cwwg.org/hh08.20.02a.html

Witness testifies about alternative technologies

Hermiston Herald
Nov. 15, 2002
By Frank Lockwood (F. Ellsworth Lockwood)
Staff writer


An Army letter to Oregon's governor indicated the state could have saved four years by using alternative technologies to dispose of bulk mustard agent stored at Umatilla Chemical Depot, according to expert witness Daniel Cassidy.

Cassidy testified in the case brought by groups and individuals seeking to have UMCDF's permits revoked for allegedly covering up information or blocking available information which might have led the Army to select a different technology than incineration to destroy chemical weapons stored at Umatilla.

Bulk mustard makes up approximately 63 percent of the stockpile of chemical weapons stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot. Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility is permitted to incinerate the bulk agent as well as assembled chemical weapons such as rockets and mines, but G.A.S.P., Sierra Club, Oregon Wildlife Federation, and 23 individuals, have sued the Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Quality Commission in an attempt to stop some or all incineration here.

Individuals involved in the suit have indicated that they believe their depositions will show that, in order to push incineration through, the state ignored available evidence of "best available technologies" and kept the public in the dark concerning dangers of incineration, by neither allowing them to cross examine experts under oath nor to formally challenge evidence offered to the DEQ during the permitting process.

Cassidy explained to the court the alternative technologies, including four which made it through the ACWA (Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment) screening process as possible alternatives to the baseline, incineration, process which is planned for Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

Asked to describe Exhibit 42, Cassidy called it a proposal from the Army to the governor of Oregon, proposing to destroy the bulk mustard part of the stockpile at Umatilla by using neutralization, with the idea that neutralization would be four years quicker than incineration. Neutralization, Cassidy explained, does not mean, chemically, what some may infer.

Neutralization in chemistry takes place when one combines an acid and a base - they neutralize. The product has a neutral Ph factor, because the acid and base counteract one another. But the hydrolysis of agents, chemically, does not refer to that kind of neutralization. When Army experts speak of neutralizing chemical agent, they may mean instead that they are neutralizing the agent's immediate danger, or reducing the agent's immediate toxicity, often by using water and oxygen to break the compounds down into smaller, individual parts.

Although Cassidy testified for those suing the DEQ and the EQC, during the testimony several hurdles were mentioned for implementation of alternatives, some of which are as follows:

• Permitting, with the state could take as long as two to three years, although some argue it could be done more quickly.
• A NEPA, Environmental Protection Act, process would be required.
• Contracts would have to be let, which would take time.
• A "reactor" decomposition building for mustard would have to be built.
• A facility investigation would have to be done on the land where the facility would be sited.
• A Health Risk Assessment is required.
• Costs, and the length of time to put the system in place, must be considered.
• Reliability, proven track record, and long-term maintenance should be considered.
• There might be another group come along, worried about the risks of the new technologies.
• Additional questions have arisen about one of the alternative technologies, that of EcoLogic at the Blue Grass facility, due to problems in their demonstrations, problems indicated by "spikes" of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons.
• New problems are likely to show up during "scale up," when the technology moves from a small, demonstration model, to a full scale project.
• According to National Research Council documents, no evidence shows that hold-test-release provides a higher level of safety than current continuous monitoring methods used by incineration for gaseous streams with low levels of contamination.

Advantages of Alternatives
On the other hand, Cassidy says, the above NRC statement about test-hold-release only holds true "under normal conditions." If something goes wrong in an incinerator, even with monitoring, emissions may escape through the stack.

Cassidy testified of many advantages of alternative technologies, some of which are the following:

•  Although both systems have stacks and vents for emissions, Cassidy said, "There is a big difference between a vent for a boiler ... and a vent for an incinerator ... the question is, what's coming out of those vents and stacks."
• Surprisingly, plans for plants at other sites have indicated that neutralization is likely to use five times less water than incineration.
• With alternative technologies, you can hold, test, and release effluents, whereas, with incineration, emissions may already be out the stack before operators realize something has gone wrong.
• Companies developing alternative technologies were able to analyze problem areas with incineration and ask themselves how they could find solutions in those areas.
• Four alternative technologies were able to meet the same "six nines" criterion as incineration (99.9999 percent destruction of the agent).
• With alternative technologies, dealing with gelled "heels" in mustard is said to be easy, whereas that created problems with incineration.
• The waste stream, the bi-product of neutralization is said to be no more or less toxic than many industrial waste streams.

Cassidy, an environmental engineer and a teacher of graduate classes at Western Michigan University, testified Nov. 1 before the Multnomah Circuit Court of the State of Oregon. The trial may go longer than was expected. Some participants had reported they hoped the trial would be over by Nov. 27, but apparently that may not happen, proponents from both sides in the case now say. After Nov. 27, the hearings will discontinue for a time, but will resume in March, 2003.

Frank Lockwood may be reached at 567-6457 or by e-mail at flockwood@hermistonherald.com.


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