The depot destroyed the last of its chemical weapons stockpile two years ago.
That “secondary waste” includes the 68,000 warheads that were already drained of GB and VX nerve agent. Workers applied thermal heat in sealed detonation chambers to destroy the contaminated materials.
“We punched two holes in the warhead, drained the agent, and then placed the warhead inside a metal container, sealed it and then temporarily stored those warheads and igloos at the depot until we were ready to begin processing them,” Mark York, communications manager of Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, said. That organization represents the plant’s workforce.
The plant’s workforce will now start decontaminating the area of the plant where the waste was handled, and decommissioning the chambers the waste destroyed in.
“Both Static Detonation Chamber facilities, which is where we process the rocket warheads, are now in that same phase of decontamination, decommissioning. So we'll go in those facilities where we had agent contamination, we will decontaminate those areas of the plant.”
Scheduled drawdowns of the plant’s workforce are happening in the meantime. Around 200 workers were released earlier this month, and a total of 886 workers remain at the plant. The next significant drawdown is expected in the spring.
An in-person job fair was scheduled for those workers earlier this month by depot officials. Other, virtual fairs are planned for workers as the closure process continues.
Demolition will begin next summer, and it’s expected to be fully closed by the end of 2027.
