Italian
"Questa è una tecnologia collaudata. E 'stato utilizzato per un decennio per distruggere i nostri propri materiali. Noi non stiamo facendo qualcosa di nuovo qui.
Questo è qualcosa che sappiamo fare ", ha detto Kendall.
Cosa c'è di nuovo sul FDHS è la sua mobilità.
English
MV Cape Ray gears up to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons
PORTSMOUTH, Va. — A new, portable chemical weapons disposal system has
been installed on the cargo ship MV Cape Ray, and it will soon deploy to
the Mediterranean Sea to destroy Syria’s deadly arsenal of mustard gas
and components of VX and sarin nerve agents.
The mission is part of an international disarmament effort led by the
United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons, which began when the Syrian government agreed to give up its
stockpile under threat of U.S. military force after chemical weapons
were used against Syrian civilians this summer.
The Cape Ray now houses the Field Deployable Hydrolysis System, a
transportable system designed to neutralize chemical warfare agents and
their precursors by heating and mixing them with reagents, such as water
and bleach. These reagents degrade the chemicals into compounds that
can’t be used as weapons, according to a Defense Department fact sheet.
The FDHS acquisition process was fast-tracked a year ago by senior DOD
officials as international concern about Syria’s chemical weapons
mounted.
“There was a recognition that something was going to happen in Syria in
all likelihood that would require us to do something with those
chemical materials that were known to be there,” Frank Kendall, the
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics,
told reporters at the NASSCO-Earl Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. where the
Cape Ray is docked. “But a year ago we were not in a position to do
this. A year ago we did not have the kind of capacity that was needed to
go and remotely, in some other location, destroy chemical materials
that are used in chemical weapons. We recognized that shortfall.”
The FDHS development project was green-lighted in January 2013 and the
first unit was delivered July 1 — warp-speed in the DOD acquisition
world where military systems often take years or decades to produce,
test and deliver.
The system can be up and running anywhere in the world within 10 days
of arriving on site. Designed to be set up and operated quickly, it can
neutralize five to 25 metric tons of chemical materials per day,
depending on the type of material being degraded, according to the DOD
fact sheet.
The neutralization technology itself is not new. It has already been
used at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., and elsewhere to destroy American
chemical weapons in the post-Cold War era.
“This is a proven technology. It’s been used for a decade now in
destroying our own materials. We’re not doing something new here, or
novel. This is something we know how to do,” Kendall said.
What’s new about the FDHS is its mobility.
“We’ve used this proven technology and then designed it in a way that
it would be transportable … We designed it to be geography independent,
user independent,” a senior defense official told reporters condition of
anonymity during a Dec. 5 briefing at the Pentagon.
Darryl Kimball, the director of the Arms Control Association, said
having the capability to neutralize the chemicals at sea is what made
the mission politically feasible.
“One reason why they’re doing it at sea is because no country stepped
up to the task of taking these precursor chemicals and the mustard [gas]
for disposal,” he said in an interview with Stars and Stripes. “So this
really is, you know, Plan B … Any concern that may have arisen in a
third county from local governments or populations is just not going to
be as much of a factor, if at all, in this kind of operation.”
DOD considered about a dozen ships before deciding that the Cape Ray
was the best option for deploying the FDHP. The Cape Ray was chosen
because it has so much empty space below deck to store large amounts of
equipment and containers, according to Robert Malone, an engineer from
the office of the Joint Program Manager for Elimination.
DOD officials allowed media to tour the Cape Ray and see the FDHS on Thursday.
The main deck where the FDHS has been installed looks like a large
warehouse filled with storage drums, containers and hoses. The actual
FDHS units are housed in a large white tent. The inside of the tent,
which contains a large vat and control modules that will be operated by
personnel wearing HAZMAT suits, looks like the set of a ‘Breaking Bad’
episode.
The disposal begins with the chemical agents being pumped from drums
and tanks into the tents where they are mixed with reagents and
neutralized in the vat. The resulting liquid waste is then pumped to
interim holding tanks for cooling and Ph level adjustment. Samples of
the effluent are also taken and transported to an analytical laboratory
on another deck for testing. It is then pumped into another set of
containers for interim storage on decks above and below the main deck.
The Cape Ray is owned by the Department of Transportation’s Maritime
Administration but is temporarily under the operational control of
Military Sealift Command. The Cape Ray is part of the Maritime
Administration’s Ready Reserve Force Fleet that can serve as a naval
auxiliary during times of war or national crisis.
During the Cape Ray’s upcoming mission, two FDHS units — the first ones
built — with accompanying filtration systems and an analytical
laboratory, will be deployed below deck to carry out the chemical
neutralization. Sixty-three DOD civilians will be on board the vessel
operating the FDHS. The DOD civilians will come from the Department of
the Army, the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological
Defense, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Edgewood Chemical
and Biological Center, all of which were involved in the FDHS design,
production, testing and training process. There will also be 35
hand-picked crew members from the Keystone Shipping Company that will
operate the ship but will not be directly involved with the FDHS,
officials said.
A DOD official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Stars and
Stripes that there will be 10 to 12 military personnel task force from
U.S. European Command onboard the ship, including a task force
commander. The task force will be responsible for the overall mission,
including security, communications, and progress reporting, the official
said.
A Navy official told Stars and Stripes that a “standard” Navy security team will be onboard, but would not provide details.
The start date for the Cape Ray’s mission is yet to be determined
because the OPCW missed the Dec. 31 deadline for removing the chemical
weapons from Syria.
“I have not gotten my sail orders yet,” Cape Ray captain Rick Jordan said.
Although details are being worked out, the framework for the destruction and disposal process has already been established.
According to DOD and the OPCW, Danish and Norwegian ships will receive
the Syrian chemical containers at the port of Latakia. Those vessels
will then take the chemicals to an unidentified port in Italy where they
will be off-loaded and transferred to the Cape Ray.
After the transfer is complete, the Cape Ray will sail into
international waters where the neutralization will occur. It will take
45 to 90 days for the FDHS operators to destroy the stockpile, which
consists of 700 metric tons of mustard gas and components of VX and
sarin nerve agents. Bad weather at sea could force suspension of
disposal operations. Jordan said he would try to maneuver the ship to
mitigate any weather problems and avoid delays.
Once the chemicals have been neutralized, they will be stored in
special hazardous waste containers onboard the Cape Ray until they are
off-loaded to a commercial waste treatment facility which the OPCW has
yet to identify, officials said.
U.S. Navy ships will provide force protection during the Cape Ray’s
mission, Kendall said. He did not say which ships would be involved.
Although the Syrian chemicals are dangerous, the neutralization and storage processes are relatively safe, according to DOD.
“The risks from the neutralization operations are very low. This is a
well-understood process [and] we have very well-trained personnel,” the
anonymous senior defense official told reporters.
Still, Kendall said there is danger involved in this kind of operation.
“We are dealing with hazardous materials. There’s no question about that,” he said. “There’s risk whenever one does that.”
The price tag of the effort is unclear.
“In terms of cost of the overall mission, I don’t think we have a good
figure yet,” a DOD official told Stars and Stripes on condition of
anonymity. But each FDHS unit produced costs U.S. taxpayers $5 million.
Three have been built thus far. The third is at Aberdeen Proving Ground.
“This [deployment of the Cape Ray and the FDHS units] would be an
in-kind contribution from the government of the United States,” the
anonymous defense official said
Once the mission is complete, the FDHS units will be removed from the
Cape Ray and the ship will be returned to the Maritime Administration in
its original condition, according to officials.
Malone said the FDHS could be deployed overseas again in the future for
chemical disposal operations or potentially for neutralization of
biological agents.
But Kimball doesn’t envision this kind of at-sea chemical disposal operation ever happening again.
“The Syrian situation is unique on several different levels. I mean,
the main reason why this [neutralization and disposal] is not being done
in Syria, which would be the normal course of action under the Chemical
Weapons Convention, is because the country is still in the middle of a
brutal civil war, and it is simply not possible, not safe, it’s not
practical,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to set a future
precedent for chemical disarmament, mainly because there are very few
countries that have chemical arsenals left … Other countries [besides
the U.S. and Russia] where CW destruction is going on have old ordnance
that simply can’t be moved and transported — they have to be destroyed
in situ. So for all those reasons, I think this is going to be a unique
situation that’s not repeated again.”
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