Environmental management technologies transform US army ammunition plant

An array of the ammunition produced at the US Army's facility in Radford.

An environmental initiative by the US Army at its largest active ammunition production facility in Radford, Virginia, is setting a new standard for environmental and eco-efficiency performance. Started in 1998 and now nearing completion, the Radford Environmental Management and Development Program (REDMAP) has successfully overlaid state-of-the-art control, monitoring, communications, Web and other information technologies onto a mature chemical production facility.

Modeled after an earlier and successful program at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania, the program integrates commercially proven environmental instruments, monitors, analyzers, controllers, recording devices, control software and alarming systems to generate real-time data and reporting for environmental performance management.

Using fibre optics in combination with a wireless local area network (LAN) and radios, real-time environmental data is gathered from remote locations throughout the plant and fed to all browser-equipped workstations in highly intuitive and user-friendly reporting formats. The emphasis on use of only off-the-shelf technologies facilitates system upgrades and expansions and ensures that the REDMAP environmental management concept is adaptable to other facilities and industries.

REDMAP innovations replace many of the time-consuming, labour-intensive field verifications, data collection and laboratory testing tasks that are fundamental to a traditional environmental compliance program. It creates a web of information that gives managers and plant personnel remote monitoring, control, and response capabilities that were previously unheard of in an industrial environmental management system.

The project employs small and specialized industrial programmable logic controllers or PLCs, which are normally used in production and manufacturing processes. These devices are integrated with environmental instruments and linked to a Web-enabled database management system. It continuously monitors data from dispersed production areas, wastewater treatment systems and other pollutant treatment processes that are spread over the facility's 4,000 acres.

Through its Web-enabled and enterprise-wide data reporting, REDMAP gives plant operators and managers a shared and global perspective on facility operations and performance. Near real-time data improves environmental compliance, data accuracy, and timeliness. It also enhances worker safety and reduces damage to the environment through early detection and prevention of spills and permit-violating discharges. It has enabled plant management to adopt a "beyond compliance" mindset and to set ambitious goals for enhanced operational and resource efficiency.

A global perspective on facility operations

Perhaps the greatest benefit of this global oversight is seen in the Upstream Monitoring Systems (UMS). REDMAP installed UMS in four areas of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant (RFAAP), including the industrial wastewater treatment plant, the sanitary treatment plant, the waste acid treatment plant, and the sewer system. The UMS provide operators and managers alike with a shared and global perspective of their entire treatment process.

In a recent case, RFAAP personnel used the UMS data on RFAAP's secure Intranet to discover that one of the production areas was releasing 400,000 (US) gallons per day of extra water to the wastewater treatment plant in an unnecessary effort to keep the water pipelines from freezing. The discovery and corrective action not only saved thousands of dollars in water charges, but also improved the wastewater treatment plant's operational efficiency.

In addition, data is monitored from five of the plant's permitted outfalls, several pump stations, ammonia storage facilities, the raw water influent, its selective catalytic recovery facility (for NO_X abatement), and two weather towers. A plant-wide ammonia emergency response system, which includes detection, notification, and plume prediction, was also instituted to improve the plant's ability to respond quickly to any ammonia release.

The brains of REDMAP is its Environmental Information System (EIS). The EIS links each environmental/industrial process into a unified, integrated whole using a relational database management system, programmable logic controllers, "human/machine interface" or automated control system software packages, and a Web-based document management system. The EIS is responsible for collecting and storing the real-time environmental data and processing it into usable information for analysis and reporting. The system permits easy access from any Web-connected computer by plant operators and environmental managers to the plant's entire performance database.

Through the alarm system, operators become immediately aware of spills, leaks, abnormally high flows, or pollutant loads. Security and fire department personnel are also instantly notified of selected alarms. Treatment plant operators are able to divert high pollutant flows to off-line basins and adjust wastewater treatment strategies, thereby minimizing treatment plant disturbances and permit violations. Environmental managers can also easily investigate an incident by backtracking to the source by analyzing trends and historical data generated by the system.

Other examples of savings and efficiencies generated include:

• Reduced maintenance hours and extended life of equipment through more rigorous monitoring of equipment condition.
• Less environmental liability through minimized risks of excursions and process upsets.
• Cost avoidance through early problem detection, process optimization and consequent minimization of the amounts of waste treated and sludges generated.
• Reduced product loss and raw material usage.
• Labour savings as a result of reduced field monitoring requirements.
• Reduced reporting costs through computerized data reporting and improved accuracy.
• (US) $50,000 in annual cost avoidance in the wastewater treatment area.
• (US) $12,000 saved annually in reduced manhours as a result of the new ammonia detection system.

Both the Army and the community have recognized REDMAP's importance as a trendsetter for industrial environmental performance, and have recognized RFAAP each year with environmental performance awards, including: the 1998 US Army Environmental Quality Award, the 1999 Secretary of Defense's Environmental Security Award for Pollution Prevention, and the 2000 Virginia Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence for Manufacturers.

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