Officials with the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant offered a demonstration Wednesday of the automated break down of nerve agent rockets.
“So now the agent robot is going to place the warhead inside the canister.”
Workers in the Madison County plant began destroying VX nerve agent through the neutralization process on July ninth. The robotic equipment was designed and built in Louisville. CRG’s James DeSmet said the automation was done for safety and efficiency. “The process they had before was automated. This just added a little newer technology. It was a re-think from back in 2018 when they said what they had currently wasn’t probably the best way to do this based on some new information they had on the aging conditions of the munitions,” said DeSmet.
Ron Hink with Bechtel Parsons, the operation’s contractor, said there are releases of agent within the facility, but none have occurred outside of engineering control. “So the ventilation design in the room design contains it and protects everyone. So the people that are in there who expect to breach an agent line and do some sort of maintenance evolution, they will experience agent, but they are trained on how to deal with it and protect themselves from the hazards,” explained Hink.
Hink said completion of the mustard agent disposal is expected in about a month. The projected date for destroying all 523 tons of chemical weapons is the end of 2023.
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