M55 Rocket Disposal Program Study. M55-OD-7. Preliminary Assessment of the Public Health Impacts of M55 Rocket Disposal - Plant Operations

摘要

This analysis of the potential public health impacts of M55 rocket disposal considered normal operations (with no release) and postulate accident for hypothetical incineration facilities at five CONUS M55 rocket storage depots (Anniston Army Depot, Lexington-Blue Grass Depot Activity, Pine Bluff Arsenal, Tooele Army Depot, and Umatilla Depot, Lexington Activity) and at Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It also considered the Chemical Agent Munitions Disposal System (CAMDS) currently in operation at Tooele Army Depot. For each case, the postulated accidents were a severe earthquake that would result in the loss of containment of an agent holding tank, releasing a large quantity of liquid agent GB ro VX to the environment, and a fire stripping the carbon bed, releasing a smaller quantity of agent to the environment. The analysis calculate downwind hazard distances for each installation and accident considered using the vapor-depletion version of the D2B atomospheric dispersion code of the U.S. Army Chemical Research and Development Center, for accidents under conservative most likely and worst-case meteorological conditions. This code predicts distances to 50% lethality, 1% lethality, and no deaths. A modified-box approach to atmospheric dispersion was used to identify no-effects distances beyond 20 km for each accident scenario. Populations-at-risk and lethalities were calculated for each release scenario, based on the agent source strength, downwind hazard distances, and populations surrounding the subject depots. Keywords: Alabama; Kentucky; Arkansas; Utah; Oregon; Atmospheric dispersion; VX agent; GB agent.