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U.S. Army Prepares to Restart Newport CW Destruction
The U.S. Army expects destruction of VX nerve agent at the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Indiana to resume within the next few weeks, according to an Army Chemical Materials Agency release (see GSN, Aug. 3). Work stopped June 10 following the leak of 30 gallons of liquid containing VX and wastewater from the neutralization process, according to the release. “Our engineers determined the leak was caused by a polymer valve diaphragm that had been deteriorated by the caustic mixture and failed, allowing the liquid to flow through to the sealed concrete floor,” site project manager Jeffrey Brubaker said in the release. “The valve diaphragms on the two reactors were replaced with a Teflon product, which will stand up to the corrosive liquid generated by the process. Workers also inspected other seals, gaskets and diaphragms in the system, checking for signs of deterioration and found none.” Brubaker said new, different valves have been ordered to replace existing valves used on the chemical neutralization reactors. “The new valves are ball-type and made of stainless steel,” he said. “These valves do not have any type of diaphragm to corrode or degrade.” Newport personnel are also working to reduce the flammability of the VX wastewater, but Brubaker said the facility could handle a fire. “The facility was designed and built to handle flammable materials, so the issue is not one of storage danger,” he said. “It's a matter of determining the cause and a path forward.” While the liquid is considered flammable under environmental and transportation standards, Brubaker said the large amount of water in the byproduct would probably prevent ignition. Brubaker said the Army is working to change the neutralization process to remove the flammability factor. “If we’re not successful with these adjustments, we’ll look at other options,” he said. Meanwhile, Newport workers have been preparing to resume operations, last week performing a hazard analysis. This will be followed in the next few weeks by a demonstration of safe operations. Following the demonstration, work will gradually resume, according to the release. “The first couple of batches will eliminate agent that was left in holding tanks when we paused operations in June,” Brubaker said. “After these batch runs, we will pause again and extensively test the wastewater. We will use the analysis of those runs to determine whether our adjustments are effective and to confirm that the wastewater is nondetect for VX before we resume draining ton containers of agent. We anticipate there will be further operational pauses as we move forward” (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Aug. 9).
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