This report reviews the status of the U.S. Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (CSDP) operations at Tooele, Utah, with respect to previous recommendations and observations made by the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (Stockpile Committee). The committee recognizes actions that have satisfied recommendations, identifies recommendations that require further action, and provides additional recommendations for improving the overall CSDP performance at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF), Tooele, Utah, and other sites.

The United States has maintained a stockpile of chemical warfare agents and munitions since World War I. The Army leadership has sought outside, unbiased advice on how best to dispose of the stockpile. In 1987, at the request of the Under Secretary of the Army, the National Research Council (NRC) established the Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (Stockpile Committee) to provide scientific and technical advice and counsel on the CSDP. This report is concerned with the technology selection for the Pueblo site, where only munitions containing mustard agent are stored. The report assesses a modified baseline process, a slightly simplified version of the baseline incineration system that was used to dispose of mustard munitions on Johnston Island. A second NRC committee is reviewing two neutralization-based technologies for possible use at Pueblo. The evaluation in this report is intended to assist authorities making the selection. It should also help the public and other non-Army stakeholders understand the modified baseline process and make sound judgments about it.

The Cold War Era left the major participants, the United States and the former Soviet Union (FSU), with large legacies in terms of both contamination and potential accidents. Facility contamination and environmental degradation, as well as the accident vulnerable facilities and equipment, are a result of weapons development, testing, and production. Although the countries face similar issues from similar activities, important differences in waste management practices make the potential environmental and health risks of more immediate concern in the FSU and Eastern Europe. In the West, most nuclear and chemical waste is stored in known contained locations, while in the East, much of the equivalent material is unconfined, contaminating the environment. In the past decade, the U.S. started to address and remediate these Cold War legacies. Costs have been very high, and the projected cost estimates for total cleanup are still increasing. Currently in Russia, the resources for starting such major activities continue to be unavailable.

Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS), the first fully integrated chemical agent disposal facility, is located on Johnston Island some 800 miles southwest of Hawaii. JACADS completed ten years of operations in November 2000, which resulted in the disposal of more than 2000 tons of nerve and mustard agents. In 1998, the Army began planning for closure and dismantling of the facility. In 1999, the NRC was asked to review the Army's planning. This book presents an assessment of planned and ongoing closure activities on Johnston Island in some detail. It also provides an analysis of the likely implications for closure of disposal facilities at eight continental U.S. storage sites.

Understanding risk to humans is one of the most important problems in environmental public health. Risk assessment is constantly changing with the advent of new exposure assessment tools, more sophisticated models, and a better understanding of disease processes. Risk assessment is also gaining greater acceptance in the developing world where major environmental problems exist. Developed in partnership with the Association of Schools of Public Health, this comprehensive text offers a thorough survey of risk assessment, management, and communications as these practices apply to public health. Key Features: Provides a practical overview of environmental risk assessment and its application by discussing the process and providing case studies and examples Focuses on tools and approaches used for humans in an environment involving potential chemical hazards Fully updated, the first part introduces the underlying principles and techniques of the field, and the second examines case studies in terms of different risk assessment scenarios Risk assessment is a core requirement for the MPH degree in environmental health Useful “stories” suitable for case studies

For over a decade the Army has been carrying out a program aimed at the destruction of accumulated chemical weapons stored at several sites. While destruction by incineration has been successful, several incidentsâ€"called chemical eventsâ€"occurred during the disposal process or decontamination activities that raised some public concerns about the safety of operations of three third generation incineration facilities. As a result, the Congress asked the NRC to investigate whether the incidents provide information useful to help ensure safe operation of the future sites. This book presents an analysis of causes of and responses to past chemical events, implications of such events for ongoing and future demilitarization activities, and recommendations for preparing for future events.

The U.S. Army is pilot testing chemical hydrolysis as a method for destroying the chemical agents stockpiled at Aberdeen, Maryland (HD mustard agent), and Newport, Indiana (VX nerve agent). The chemical agents at both locations, which are stored only in bulk ton containers, will be hydrolyzed (using aqueous sodium hydroxide for VX and water for HD) at slightly below the boiling temperature of the solution. The resulting hydrolysate at Aberdeen, which will contain thiodiglycol as the primary reaction product, will be treated by activated sludge biodegradation in sequencing batch reactors to oxidize organic constituents prior to discharge to an on-site federally owned wastewater treatment facility. The hydrolysate at Newport, which will contain a thiol amine and methyl phosphonic acid as the major reaction products, is not readily amenable to treatment by biodegradation. Therefore, organic constituents will be treated using supercritical water oxidation (SCWO). Integrated Design of Alternative Technologies for Bulk-Only Chemical Agent Disposal Facilities focuses on the overarching issues in the process designs integrating individual processing steps, including potential alternative configurations and process safety and reliability. This report reviews the acquisition design packages (ADPs) for the ABCDF and NECDF prepared by Stone and Webster Engineering Company for the U.S. Army.

In keeping with a congressional mandate (Public Law 104-484) and the Chemical Weapons Convention, the United States is currently destroying its chemical weapons stockpile. The Army must ensure that the chemical demilitarization workforce is protected from the risks of exposure to hazardous chemicals during disposal operations and during and after facility closure. Good industrial practices developed in the chemical and nuclear energy industries and other operations that involve the processing of hazardous materials include workplace monitoring of hazardous species and a systematic occupational health program for monitoring workers' activities and health. In this report, the National Research Council Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program examines the methods and systems used at JACADS and TOCDF, the two operational facilities, to monitor the concentrations of airborne and condensed-phase chemical agents, agent breakdown products, and other substances of concern. The committee also reviews the occupational health programs at these sites, including their industrial hygiene and occupational medicine components. Finally, it evaluates the nature, quality, and utility of records of workplace chemical monitoring and occupational health programs.

This report reviews the Army's evaluation of carbon filters for use in the baseline incineration PAS, as well as the Army's change management process (the Army's tool for evaluating major equipment and operational changes to disposal facilities). In preparing this report, members of the Stockpile Committee evaluated exhaust gas emissions testing at the two operating baseline incineration systems, JACADS and the TOCDF; evaluated the development of the dilute SOPC carbon filter simulation model; and evaluated the conceptual design of a modified PAS with an activated carbon filter. The two major risk assessments conducted for each continental disposal site that use the baseline system, namely, (1) the quantitative risk assessment, which evaluates the risks and consequences of accidental agent releases, and (2) the health risk assessment, which evaluates the potential effects of nonagent emissions on human health and the environment, were also examined.