Findings and Recommendations - Occupational Health and Workplace Monitoring at Chemical Agent Disposal Facilities - page 28

products. The possible presence of decomposition
products during weapons processing or closure opera-
tions has received little attention to date.
Liquid-phase processing technologies will be used
at the bulk-only sites (Aberdeen, Maryland, and New-
port, Indiana), and surface hydrolysis products may be
encountered during closure activities at all disposal
sites. Therefore, analytical techniques must be capable
of detecting both residual chemical agent and toxic
chemical agent degradation (chiefly hydrolysis) prod-
ucts in liquids and in solids. Established techniques and
analytical measurement practices for detecting agent
and/or agent degradation products in liquid-phase ma-
trices or associated with solid materials are not sensi-
tive or rapid enough to provide the near-real-time pro-
cess control or waste materials screening required for
worker protection. The current techniques for analyz-
ing headspace may be inadequate for detecting agent
or agent degradation products associated with spent
activated carbon or other absorptive materials. This
extends the committee's previous recommendation to
develop better detection methods for residual liquid-
phase VX and mustard agents associated with the liq-
uid-phase process streams planned for Aberdeen and
Newport (NRC, 2000a).

components, as well as some optional components, rec-
ommended by the American College of Occupational
and Environmental Medicine. Based on committee
briefings and discussions with PMCD and contractor
site personnel involved in chemical monitoring, indus-
trial hygiene, and occupational medicine, these pro-
grams appear to be staffed by competent professionals
who understand the importance of their roles and ap-
pear to be fulfilling them responsibly.

Recommendation 4. The Army and its operating con-
tractors should continue to execute and refine a vigor-
ous, proactive occupational and environmental health
program at all chemical agent disposal sites.

Finding 5. As disposal activities near completion,
some workers will want to continue working in the
CSDP at other sites. During visits to the operating
TOCDF site and the construction sites at Anniston,
Alabama, Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana,
committee members encountered many veteran em-
ployees of JACADS both among contractor personnel
and Army oversight personnel. The formatting and
maintenance of workplace monitoring and worker
medical records for contractor personnel are currently
the responsibility of the prime operating contractor at
each site. Consistent formats and methods of archiving
these records would clearly facilitate the creation of
career medical and potential exposure profiles for indi-
viduals who work at more than one disposal facility.
An easily accessible database of records for all sites
(subject to maintaining workers' privacy rights) would
be extremely useful for epidemiological studies of
health trends among CSDP workers.
A useful method of reconstructing potential worker
exposure to agents can be to correlate data from records
of shift duty, hazardous operations, toxic area entries,
and area airborne agent concentrations. These correla-
tions are only practical if the records are electronically
archived and centrally searchable.

Recommendation 3a. For better monitoring of liquid-
phase process streams, the Army should actively pur-
sue the development of more accurate and faster liq-
uid-phase analytical techniques for detecting residual
agent, as well as agent degradation products of con-
cern.

Recommendation 3b. The Army should identify toxic
agent reaction products likely to be present at poten-
tially harmful levels in liquid-phase process streams,
liquid wastes, and solid wastes, including waste
streams generated during closure activities.

Recommendation 3c. The Army should develop and
deploy advanced technologies for rapidly and accu-
rately measuring residual agent and agent degradation
products of concern associated with solid waste, par-
ticularly on solid waste surfaces and spent activated-
carbon stocks encountered during closure operations.

Recommendation 5a. The Army and its operating con-
tractors should use the same medical forms, especially
for key program elements, such as agent exposures and
heat-stress monitoring.

Finding 4. The CSDP's overall occupational and envi-
ronmental health program, as well as the specific ver-
sions implemented at JACADS and TOCDF, are com-
prehensive. That is, they include all of the required

Recommendation 5b. The Army and its operating con-
tractors should retain medical records in a way that al-
lows for continuity in the event personnel are trans-
ferred to other disposal facilities.