Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility project update 8/26/10

As a result of the external Environmental Management System (EMS) audit conducted earlier this month, it has been determined that the site maintains compliance with the International Standards Organization (ISO) 14001 Standards.

The UMCDF saw its chemical weapons destruction slow a little during the past week due to a couple furnace outages. First, one of the plant’s two Liquid Incinerators (LICs) is undergoing a scheduled outage for annual maintenance. The LIC 1 was shut down about a week ago to begin the outage, which is expected to last about 15 days. Second, the Metal Parts Furnace (MPF) had to be shut down for unscheduled maintenance when a water leak occurred in the Discharge Airlock (DAL).

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Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility weekly project update - August 19

The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF) recently surpassed another major safety milestone. The site reached 7 million work hours without a lost time accident. The last injury where an employee missed work occurred on July 7, 2006. The number is the equivalent of a person working a 40-hour week for more than 3,365 years without missing work due to an injury.

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Half of Umatilla stockpile has been destroyed

The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF) has surpassed the 50 percent mark for destroying the original stockpile of chemical warfare agents at the Umatilla Chemical Depot. This includes all of the nerve agent and a portion of the mustard agent destroyed since the start of chemical operations in 2004.

As of Aug. 6, the UMCDF had destroyed more than 1,858 tons of liquid chemical agents, orhalf the original total of 3,717 tons stored at Umatilla since the 1960s.

Expect complete destruction in two years or less.

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August 3: UMCDF destroys oldest mustard ton container stored at UMCD

The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF) today destroyed the oldest mustard ton container stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

The 70-year-old ton container was manufactured in 1940. In 1946, it was filled with 1,768 pounds of mustard agent at the Rocky Mt. Arsenal, near Denver, Colo., and later transported to UMCD between 1962-1969, where it remained in storage until its disposal. Depot employees nicknamed the container “Grandpa.” Depot maps identified its storage structure as “Grandpa’s House.”

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