Timothy K. Garrett, the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (ANCDF) government site project manager reports that half of the total of GB M55 rockets stored at Anniston Army Depot have been destroyed. “As of noon today, the ANCDF team has safely, completely, and irreversibly destroyed more than 21,300 rockets filled with the nerve agent GB,” said Timothy K. Garrett, ANCDF Site Project Manager. “This truly significant milestone means that we have reduced the risk of danger from storing chemical weapons in this community by nearly 12 percent.” Rocket disposal operations at the ANCDF began on Aug. 9, 2003. Westinghouse Anniston, the systems contractor charged with operating the ANCDF, achieved the 50 percent disposal mark while also recording an impressive safety record. To date, the ANCDF site has worked more than 5.2 million man hours (5,204,223 hours as of Feb. 29, 2004) without a lost time accident. The safety mark is comparable to, or better than, safety records for the average law office or public library. “I am extremely proud of the work and the accomplishments of the entire ANCDF team,” Garrett said. “I have to believe the team’s families, neighbors, and friends – in fact the entire community of people throughout northeast Alabama – is also justifiably proud of what has been accomplished in just 222 days of operations.” According to Garrett, “Everyone involved in the successful operation of the ANCDF, to include all of the area Emergency Management Offices, Anniston Army Depot and Anniston Chemical Activity employees, and the business community who provides the supplies and services we need, have worked very hard to ensure that we accomplish two significant goals.
“We are reducing the risk our community faces due to the storage of the chemical weapons. And, equally as important, we are accomplishing our collective mission without personal harm or environmental damage,” Garrett stated.
The GB rocket disposal milestone comes on the heels of a successful community exercise designed to evaluate the depot’s and the surrounding communities’ preparedness to jointly mitigate a potential accident involving the chemical weapons stored here. Calhoun County Commissioner Eli Henderson was one of many community and elected representatives to play an active role during the exercise.
While talking to an exercise evaluator, Henderson said, “The real heart of this exercise and the thing for which we should all be most thankful for is that nearly 50 percent of the GB rockets have already been destroyed. That’s the rest of the story.”
The rocket disposal milestone was reached during the fourth and final run of a series of tests at the ANCDF requested by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Each M55 rocket is stored in its own fiberglass tube. Most of the tubes were manufactured with a very small amount of PCBs. Considering the PCBs, and the fact that rocket disposal operations fall under the U.S Toxic Substances and Control Act (TSCA), the EPA requested new tests in addition to ones conducted in November 2003.
“The tests we conducted for the EPA appeared to have gone very smoothly this week.” Garrett said. “It will now take us several weeks to analyze the samples, write a report, and forward that information to the EPA.
“In the meantime,” Garrett continued, “we intend to resume our shakedown operations in order to meet other requirements to test our disposal operations with gelled or crystalline rockets. Those tests may get under way next month.”
