Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons (1999) / Chapter Skim
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2 Evaluation Factors
2 Evaluation Factors
Pages 23-35
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From page 23... ...
, which focused on the disposal of bulk chemical agents stockpiled at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and the Newport Chemical Activity, Indiana (NRC, 1996a)
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· effectiveness -ability to disassemble the munitions capacity to decompose and detoxify chemical agents and to reduce the products to disposable waste streams capacity to decompose and deactivate energetic materials and to reduce the products to disposable waste streams - ability to decontaminate munition parts and other materials · sampling and analysis · maturity · robustness · monitoring and control · applicability Effectiveness Ability to Disassemble Munitions Most of the technology providers proposed using the baseline disassembly process discussed in Appendix C However, some proposed modifying it, and some proposed alternatives.
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The committee's evaluation factors include the ability of the technology packages to meet this Army requirement. An acceptable process must, therefore, have an agent destruction efficiency of 99.9999 percent or greater.2 In addition to the destruction efficiency, the Army sets limits on allowable contamination by chemical agent of materials to determine if the material (1)
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in addition to meeting the Army requirements listed above, a process must meet the requirements of the CWC, which states that chemical weapons destruction must take place using "a process by which chemicals are converted in an essentially irreversible way to a form unsuitable for production of chemical weapons, and which in an irreversible manner renders munitions and other devices unusable as such." The requirement of irreversibility implies that both the chemical agents and any by-products that could be readily converted to chemical agent (CWC Schedule 2 [agent "precursor"] compounds)
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Therefore, the committee examined the proposed processes in the context of available sampling and analytical methodologies to establish whether their performance could be verified. The committee considered the detection limits of current analytical methods for chemical agents, energetics, and the major and minor products of destruction.
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All of the technology providers proposed using standard Army technology to monitor for chemical agent. They also proposed using state-of-the-art distributed monitoring and control systems linked to a central control room and data-collection system.
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The ACW Committee considered the following subfactors in the category of process safety: · worker health and safety normal facility operations facility accidents · public safety facility accidents · transportation accidents Worker Health and Safety In-plant safety and health risks depend on the nature and magnitude of the hazards inside the process facility. The committee's preliminary evaluation of each alternative technology included the following aspects of in-plant risks: · major failure and agent release · worker exposure to agents without catastrophic failure · worker exposure to other hazardous chemicals used or produced during the process · worker exposure to other hazardous process conditions (e.g., high temperature, electromagnetic radiation, electrical energy, moving equipment, etc.
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The issues or factors that have been evaluated include both worker and public exposure to accidental releases during the transport of assembled chemical weapons from storage to the disassembly area, hazardous chemicals transported to and on the processing site, and hazardous waste transported from the processing site to the disposal or post-processing site. The transport of weapons from storage to the disassembly area was essentially identical for all of the proposed systems (i.e., the Army's on-site container unit is used)
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Therefore, the risk from the transportation of process materials to or from the site was not considered a significant criterion for the evaluation of the technology packages. HUMAN HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT The human health and environment factor includes the impact of normal facility operations on the health of the public and the surrounding environment, including various ecosystems.
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Effluent-Management Strategy All of the waste streams generated by the proposed systems must be managed in an environmentally acceptable manner. Some systems would produce waste streams that are particularly difficult to manage.
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If, however, potential permitting issues were identified (e.g., the process required Subpart X permits for its agent treatment system, its air emissions were similar to some processes that have encountered permitting problems, or the process created a waste that was different from typical hazardous waste) , then these issues are discussed within the environmental compliance and permitting section of the technolo~v chanter.
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Third, the committee evaluated the prospects for the public acceptance of alternatives to incineration, especially the innovative process for public involvement being used by the ACWA program. The discussion focuses on the development and workings of the ACWA Dialogue Group, which has directly involved interest groups, regulators, and citizens in the process of identifying and selecting alternative technologies.
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Thus, the technology providers included mass balances for a variety of munition feeds in their proposals and other documentation. The committee examined these mass balances to determine whether the providers had a solid understanding of their processes.
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