Fort Richardson

Critical Cleanup
Target

Army Proposes "Treatment" of Chemical Weapons
at Fort Richardson

In 1993, chemical warfare agents were unearthed by the Army during its excavation of solvent-contaminated soils at the Poleline Road Disposal Area on Fort Richardson, just outside of Anchorage. The EPA designated Fort Richardson as a National Priorities List or Superfund site in December 1994, listing 46 contaminated areas on the base that pose a potential threat to the environment and human health. Chemical warfare agents discovered at Fort Richardson include: mustard (HD), lewisite (L or M1), chloropicrin, triphosgene, phosgene, chloroacetophenone, and adamsite. Chemical warfare agents, including training sets, were contained within glass bottles and metal canisters, although adamsite (DM) was found to have leaked into surrounding soils. After excavation, the chemical warfare agents were stored in a bunker on the Army base that does not meet federal standards for hazardous material storage under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

The Army proposes to use an experimental technology, the Rapid Response System (RRS) to "treat" the chemical warfare materials, claiming that the treatment would neutralize the chemicals. The Army’s claim is simply not true. The treatment process would generate toxic chemicals that are equal to or more toxic than the chemical warfare agents themselves. The RRS treatment is not fully tested or certified. The Army presented its preferred alternative as "final" before the Engineering Evaluation document went out for public review.

Alaska Community Action on Toxics prepared detailed comments on the Army’s proposed plan, concluding that the RRS treatment "must be fully tested and certified through an independent scientific assessment. We believe that the Army must actively pursue alternatives to incineration (this process generates the carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting chemicals dioxins and furans). The RRS treatment must not be allowed to proceed until and unless the chlorinated by-products can be fully neutralized through non-incineration alternatives."

Please call ACAT if you wish to review the Army’s documents or our comments. If you want to express your opinion to the Army, write to: Kevin Gardner, Fort Richardson, Attn. APVR-RPW-EV, 730 Quartermaster Road, Fort Richardson, Alaska 99505-6500 (fax: 907-384-3047; email: gardnerk@richardson-emh2.army.mil). Also, write to Colonel Edmund Libby, Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Program, U.S. Army Chemical Materiel Destruction Agency, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010 (call 800-488-0648).