A Look Ahead at 2025: Closure Year Two at the Pueblo Plant

Workers at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant remove used carbon filters from the Air Filtration Area in May 2019. The carbon filters removed toxic agents and other organic vapors from air circulating within the agent processing buildings during the plant’s operating phase and are scheduled to be disassembled in Year Two of the plant’s closure phase.
Workers at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant remove used carbon filters from the Air Filtration Area in May 2019. The carbon filters removed toxic agents and other organic vapors from air circulating within the agent processing buildings during the plant’s operating phase and are scheduled to be disassembled in Year Two of the plant’s closure phase.
Workers at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant remove used carbon filters from the Air Filtration Area in May 2019. The carbon filters removed toxic agents and other organic vapors from air circulating within the agent processing buildings during the plant’s operating phase and are scheduled to be disassembled in Year Two of the plant’s closure phase.
Workers at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant remove used carbon filters from the Air Filtration Area in May 2019. The carbon filters removed toxic agents and other organic vapors from air circulating within the agent processing buildings during the plant’s operating phase and are scheduled to be disassembled in Year Two of the plant’s closure phase.

Closure activities at the Pueblo plant in 2025 will focus on securing reuse requirements for transfer of the three Static Detonation Chamber units, removing the Agent Filtration Area carbon filters and disassembling equipment and piping in the Agent Processing Building.

“I am extremely proud of the plant’s progress in 2024, but if you were to look at the external site, you wouldn’t see much that’s different,” said Walton Levi, site project manager, Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant, or PCAPP. “In 2025, you will begin to see significant changes to the PCAPP footprint.”

All three Static Detonation Chamber, or SDC, units will be disassembled and transported this year to other states for reuse by U.S. Army organizations. Each unit will be decontaminated, decommissioned and disassembled before being transported to its new location.

The first to go will be Unit 1, which is headed to Alabama. Plant personnel will complete the required Reuse Readiness Reports, or RRRs, and submit them to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in order to gain approval by April, when Army representatives expect to arrive on site to conduct the removal process. Unit 2 and 3 RRRs will follow in the summer when similar activities occur and the other two units are disassembled and transported to Maryland.

Equipment removal will occur in the Agent Processing Building, or APB, with a focus on the Munitions Treatment Unit and off-gas treatment system in January and February. This will be followed with Unventilated Monitoring Testing in late February. Sampling, analysis, and report creation will continue in the APB through mid-October.

From February to July, crews will disassemble and remove carbon filter trays from the Air Filtration Area, or AFA, and conduct sampling and analysis of the area from August through October. The AFA collected air from the Enhanced Reconfiguration Building and the APB during chemical weapons disassembly and agent neutralization. This sophisticated air filtration system removed chemical agents and other organic vapors from air circulating within the processing buildings and equipment.

Preparations for closure of the plant laboratory and yard are expected to occur by the end of 2025 as well.

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