Red Cliff, Wisconsin Last summer the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior (a Chippewa Tribe) and their support contractor recovered 25 barrels from the Lake Superior Barrel Dump Site under a DoD funded project. The barrels reportedly contain thousands of old detonators but the Tribe was unable to properly dispose of the material since there are no federally approved facilities authorized to receive hazardous explosive materials on the Great Lakes.
The Tribe did not have the proper permits in place to transport the material on land through Minnesota or Wisconsin so the Tribe and the contractor had no choice but to re-package the detonators into six bright orange containers and dump them back into the waters of the Great Lakes. GPS positions were recorded; plans for follow up retrieval and proper disposal of the containers are pending based on the Tribe's ability to get a federal waiver to transport and process the explosive hazardous waste.
Article from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board website.
Washington, DC In a final report set to be considered today, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) said an explosion and fire that killed five workers during a fireworks disposal operation in Hawaii in 2011 resulted from unsafe disposal practices; insufficient safety requirements for government contractor selection and oversight; and an absence of national guidelines, standards, and regulations for fireworks disposal.
The draft document, scheduled for a board vote at a public meeting in Washington, DC, today, recommends that federal agencies develop a new government-wide safety and environmental responsibility requirement for contractors, and calls for new regulations on the safe disposal of fireworks, a growing problem across the U.S.
Article continued on the CSB Website.
Washington, D.C. Several years ago the Department of Labor (DOL) added UXO Technician categories to the list of occupations and skill sets under Service Contract Act (SCA) contracts. SCA rates are the minimum hourly rates that companies are required to pay employees working under SCA contracts. The scale or wages vary by location including by State and county.
UXOInfo.com conducted an evaluation of SCA wage lists from over a dozen of locations and came across some interesting results. All wage determinations examined had five categories for UXO technicians under the 30000 series (Technical Occupations). These included:
In all cases examined from the DOL website, the minimum hourly rates for the Sweep Personnel and Safety Escort were equal to the rate for a UXO Technician Level I. However, what is more interesting is that the DDESBP and USACE policy requires escorts to be performed by a UXO Technician Level II or higher. Specific language from the respective policies are highlighted below:
Washington, D.C. The Department of Defense Explosive Safety Board (DDESB) Administratively Reissued their Explosives Safety Standard "DoD Ammunition and Explosives Safety Standards: 6055.09-M". In the re-issue process, the 6055.09 standard was reclassified as a "Manual" and was issued in a series of eight separate volumes.
The volume which impacts the UXO industry the most is Volume 7: "Criteria for UXO, Munitions Response, Waste Military Munitions, and Material Potentially Presenting an Explosive Hazard (MPPEH)". Specifically within Volume 7 are enclosures on several topics including enclosures for UXO, Real Property Known or Suspected to Contain MEC and chemical agents (CA), and MPPEH.
The revised Manual is close to the version that was updated and released in February 2008. However, the revised manual does have some interesting new or revised requirements that are worth noting.
The updated list for 2010 includes 237 materials. One noticeable change from lists published in recent years is the absence of ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP). APCP has been removed from the list as a result of a court decision in March 2009 and is no longer regulated under federal explosive laws.
Sub-section 16-3 covering collection of MPPEH does not incorporate any "new" requirements related to the management of MPPEH itself but rather updates the 6055.STD so that it agrees with language in DoD Instruction 4140.62 "Material Potentially Presenting an Explosive Hazard" which was updated in November 2008. The revised DDESB standard strengthens DoD's commitment to ensure that hazardous material is not released outside of its control and that all material inspected that is certified as safe (i.e., material documented as safe [MDAS]) is controlled and maintained to prevent potential co-mingling of MPPEH and material documented as an explosive hazard (MDEH).
The policy basically allows certain CAIS recovered to be treated and disposed of as hazardous waste by contractors as an alternative to initiating a chemical event report and having the Army (i.e. Technical Escort) respond as an explosives or emergency response under the 20th Support Command (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, High Yield Explosives CBRNE). The policy also waives the requirement for a chemical site plan and a munition response chemical safety submission for sites where only K951/2, K953/4 and/or K955 CAIS are recovered.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
