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ARSENAL TO PRESENT SAFETY AWARD DURING CEREMONY NEXT WEEK

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:28 PM CDT

The Pine Bluff Arsenal will hold an award ceremony next week to recognize its chemical weapons disposal workforce for receiving a safety distinction that is the first of its kind, arsenal officials said Wednesday.

The arsenal’s Pine Bluff Chemical Activity has been awarded the U.S. Army Accident Prevention Award of Accomplishment in Safety by the Army Material Command. According to the AMC Safety Division, it was the first time the award had been given.

“They’re really just doing a great job,” David Reber of Washington Defense Group, EG&G Division of URS Corp., said during a recent meeting of the Citizens’ Advisory Commission at the arsenal. Reber is the project general manager at the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

The award ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday in Creasy Auditorium, located just outside the main gate of the arsenal. The award will be presented to Lt. Col. Cliff Johnston, commander of the Pine Bluff Chemical Activity.

“This is a significant accomplishment for the Activity since a majority of the workforce is responsible for the transport of chemical weapons to the ... facility for destruction,” spokeswoman Carole Newton said.

The arsenal also will present the facility’s 2008 Safety Person of the Year award.

The Accumulative Years Safety Award also was presented last year by the Arkansas Department of Labor and the Arkansas Insurance Department. In addition, Occupational Safety and Health Administration recordable accidents were reduced from six in 2006 to three in 2007, and four in 2008.

Conrad F. Whyne, director of the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, will be on hand for the ceremony.

At the West Pine Bluff Rotary Club meeting Thursday, Reber gave an update on weapons incineration at the facility, which had destroyed 227 ton containers of mustard blister agent as of Monday. That number represents roughly 6 percent of the mustard stored there and 21 percent of the total chemical agent.

He said workers had successfully completed agent trial burns, which are required by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. The facility is operating at or below 50 percent of the maximum feed rates, as stipulated by the current restrictions in its Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit. Once ADEQ receives and approves the trial burn data report, the feed rates for the furnaces will increase to 75 percent.

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