For the last two decades, the United States has been destroying its entire stockpile of chemical agents. At the facilities where these agents are being destroyed, effluent gas streams pass through large activated carbon filters before venting to ensure that any residual trace vapors of chemical agents and other pollutants do not escape into the atmosphere in exceedance of regulatory limits. All the carbon will have to be disposed of for final closure of these facilities to take place. In March 2008, the Chemical Materials Agency asked the National Research Council to study, evaluate, and recommend the best methods for proper and safe disposal of the used carbon from the operational disposal facilities. This volume examines various approaches to handling carbon waste streams from the four operating chemical agent disposal facilities. The approaches that will be used at each facility will ultimately be chosen bearing in mind local regulatory practices, facility design and operations, and the characteristics of agent inventories, along with other factors such as public involvement regarding facility operations.

For the last two decades, the United States has been destroying its entire stockpile of chemical agents. At the facilities where these agents are being destroyed, effluent gas streams pass through large activated carbon filters before venting to ensure that any residual trace vapors of chemical agents and other pollutants do not escape into the atmosphere in exceedance of regulatory limits. All the carbon will have to be disposed of for final closure of these facilities to take place. In March 2008, the Chemical Materials Agency asked the National Research Council to study, evaluate, and recommend the best methods for proper and safe disposal of the used carbon from the operational disposal facilities. This volume examines various approaches to handling carbon waste streams from the four operating chemical agent disposal facilities. The approaches that will be used at each facility will ultimately be chosen bearing in mind local regulatory practices, facility design and operations, and the characteristics of agent inventories, along with other factors such as public involvement regarding facility operations.

For the last two decades, the United States has been destroying its entire stockpile of chemical agents. At the facilities where these agents are being destroyed, effluent gas streams pass through large activated carbon filters before venting to ensure that any residual trace vapors of chemical agents and other pollutants do not escape into the atmosphere in exceedance of regulatory limits. All the carbon will have to be disposed of for final closure of these facilities to take place. In March 2008, the Chemical Materials Agency asked the National Research Council to study, evaluate, and recommend the best methods for proper and safe disposal of the used carbon from the operational disposal facilities. This volume examines various approaches to handling carbon waste streams from the four operating chemical agent disposal facilities. The approaches that will be used at each facility will ultimately be chosen bearing in mind local regulatory practices, facility design and operations, and the characteristics of agent inventories, along with other factors such as public involvement regarding facility operations.

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.

This book responds to a request by the director of the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) for the National Research Council to examine and evaluate the ongoing planning for closure of the four currently operational baseline incineration chemical agent disposal facilities and the closure of a related testing facility. The book evaluates the closure planning process as well as some aspects of closure operations that are taking place while the facilities are still disposing of agent. These facilities are located in Anniston, Alabama; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Tooele, Utah; and Umatilla, Oregon. They are designated by the acronyms ANCDF, PBCDF, TOCDF, and UMCDF, respectively. Although the facilities all use the same technology and are in many ways identical, each has a particular set of challenges.

Under the direction of the U.S. Army's Chemical Materials Agency (CMA) and mandated by Congress, the nation is destroying its chemical weapons stockpile. Large quantities of secondary waste are being generated in the process, and managing these wastes safely and effectively is a critical part of CMA's weapons disposal program. To assist, the CMA asked the NRC to examine the environmental and regulatory requirements that secondary waste treatment is subject to, and to assess best practices by industry in meeting such requirements for similar facilities. This book presents an overview of secondary wastes from chemical agent disposal facilities (CDF), a comparison of CDF and industry experience, site-specific analysis of major secondary waste issues, an examination of closure wastes, and findings and recommendations.

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.