Here's how Letterkenny will safely destroy thousands of rocket motors
CHAMBERSBURG - Congress more than 25 years ago banned American industries from disposing of hazardous waste in the open air.
Lawmakers, however, gave the military time to find another way besides open burning to get rid of munitions. Today it’s still standard practice at places like Letterkenny Munitions Center to open burn.
Related: Toxic pollution at Letterkenny: A 35-year, $180 million clean-up
ProPublica, an independent news organization, has investigated the military’s disposal of explosives and munitions. Environmental Protection Agency PowerPoint presentations made to senior agency staff describe something of a runaway national program, based on “a dirty technology” with “virtually no emissions controls.” The process poses potential health problems for surrounding communities and potential contamination that would be expensive to clean up.
EPA’s system for determining how much chemical burning is safe amounts to little more than educated guesses, according to ProPublica. The limits are established using layers of computer modeling that can be highly speculative and that often bear little resemblance to the day-to-day reality.
Letterkenny Army Depot hosts one of the military’s more than 50 facilities that burn and detonate munitions in the open air.
The Letterkenny Munitions Center disposes of unstable and obsolete munitions and rocket motors. The center, which leases most of the land on depot, is under a separate command than its landlord.
LEMC is putting the final touches on a $38 million chamber where rocket motors will be destroyed and 98 percent of pollutants captured. The chamber, a decade in the making, is to begin operations in 2018.
Tens of thousands of rocket motors powered by ammonium perchlorate are to be destroyed in the next 10 to 15 years, according to Natasia Kenosky, LEMC business development specialist. That made it “critical” that a comprehensive demilitarization process be developed.
Ammonium perchlorate, a popular solid rocket fuel, can pose health risks in the environment. Perchlorate adversely affects human health by interfering with iodine uptake into the thyroid gland.
The chemical can find its way into the groundwater during open burning. Faulty or damaged rocket motors can deflagrate. A motor case can erupt and scatter unburnt perchlorate propellant across the range.
The chamber will “completely eliminate this danger,” Kenosky said.
She defends the open burning and open detonation processes as “safe, efficient and environmentally compliant.” Extensive controls, including stringent permitting requirements, ensure the health and safety of the surrounding communities and environment.
Open burning also is safer for LEMC personnel, Kenosky said.The extra handling required to prepare munitions for processing in closed disposal technologies routinely exposes personnel to a greater risk of explosions. Some munitions are too powerful for the conventional closed technologies.
Soil and water samples were taken at the open burn/detonation area in 2001. The concentrations of chemicals in the samples were below levels that would require groundwater protection.
The Army has since improved controls to curtail soil erosion and sediment run-off, according to the Joint Land Use Plan for the depot and its tenants. A sedimentation basin was installed and the detonation area was reduced. The size of detonations was limited.
LEMC maintains an on-going groundwater monitoring program, Kenosky said. Activities are isolated from nearby wetlands.
LEMC has not been found in violation of its environmental permits in the past five years, she said.
Jim Hook, 717-262-4759