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TheTooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF, also calledTooele Chemical Demilitarization Facility) or TOCDF, is aU.S. Army facility located atDeseret Chemical Depot inTooele County,Utah that was used for dismantlingchemical weapons.
Destruction is a requirement under theChemical Weapons Convention and is monitored by theOrganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Deseret Chemical Depot held 44% of the nation's chemical stockpile when processing began, and it had held some of these chemical munitions since 1942. TOCDF was constructed in the early 1990s and began destruction of chemical agent-filled munitions on 22 August 1996. As of September 2011, the facility had processed 99% of its stockpile.[1][2] TOCDF processed all of itsVX,sarin andmustard gas at its main facility; a smaller incinerator was installed west of the main plant in order to dispose oflewisite-filled containers. In advance of plant closing, two ponds were revitalized and the surrounded area reseeded as well as 29 miles of railroad being removed (out of 40-miles of rail in Deseret). Disposal of all chemical weapons concluded on 21 January 2012.[3] It was the last depot to complete its disposal operations under theU.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency; although two other depots still store chemical weapons to be destroyed by the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program at Pueblo, Colorado and Bluegrass, Kentucky.
Each of the weapons listed containedsarin (GB)
All sarin (6,045.26 short tons or 5,484.17 tonnes) was disposed of by March 2002.
After completion of the GB campaigns, the plant was converted to dispose of similar weapons containingVX agent:
All VX (1,356.32 short tons or 1,230.43 tonnes) was disposed of by 3 June 2005. Processing of VX-contaminated containers was completed in October 2005.
After VX processing was completed, the plant was reconfigured to process chemical weapons containingmustard gas, also called mustard agent or H or HD or HT.
Operations to destroy mustard gas weapons were completed on 21 January 2012.
The destruction process involves receiving the items in protective containers from a covered, protected storage area, and placing the items onto trays for insertion into the automated processing area.
Inside the first automated area, the Explosion Containment Room, explosive components are removed from the items and destroyed in a rotatingkiln called the Deactivation Furnace System. The items then are carried on automated cars to another room, called the Munition Processing Bay, where automated machinery sucks the liquid agent out. The liquid is sent to holding tanks. The nearly-empty items are then moved to the lower level on an automated lift, and introduced into a high-temperature (maximum 2,000°F or 1,100°C) oven called the Metal Parts Furnace, which destroys the residual agent so that the containers can be safely disposed of as scrap metal.
The liquid agent is destroyed in one of two high-temperature (maximum 2,700 °F or 1,500 °C) ovens called Liquid Incinerators. The products of combustion from the ovens and kilns pass through extensive Pollution Abatement Systems, which catch the airborne products as salts, and hold them in a liquidslurry calledbrine, which is periodically shipped to out-of-state underground disposal facilities.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)40°17′52″N112°20′36″W / 40.29778°N 112.34333°W /40.29778; -112.34333
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