Decontamination

the maintenance of car movement records to easily determine which cars have not been moved in

the last 45 days, so their movement can be scheduled.

f. Decontamination. Activities that handle energetic materials have discovered

contamination on the floorboards of rail cars prior to and during rail car maintenance. In addition,

activities have also had serious fires in maintenance facilities because maintenance procedures

ignited energetic material that was not known by the activity to be contaminating railcars. Spills

of bulk or loose energetic material have caused this contamination during times when the long-

term dangers posed by hazardous material contamination were not fully understood and when less

emphasis was placed on prompt decontamination. As personnel retired and activities transferred

railcars among themselves, the corporate memory of past spills disappeared, but the possibility of

harmful contamination remaining has not disappeared. Contaminated railcars present threats to

personnel and the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is concerned about

the environmental risks associated with re-activity, ignitability, corrosivity, and toxicity; and the

Naval ordnance safety community is concerned about the explosive safety risks. Checks, which

can indicate the presence of energetic material, must be performed. Activities are directed to have

procedures that prevent injury, damage, or environmental harm resulting from maintenance being

performed on contaminated railcars.

(1) The procedures shall ensure that railcars be checked for contamination prior to

maintenance. However, railcars do not have to be checked prior to routine servicing operations in

which the operation is unlikely to involve contamination if it is present.

(2) These procedures must adhere to requirements of 40 Code of Federal Regulations

Parts 261, 262-265, 268, and 270; EPA Publication SW-846; and all applicable state and local

laws.

(3) These procedures must ensure that if testing shows that the car is contaminated

with corrosive, toxic, reactive, and/or ignitable material, then:

The railcar will be marked conspicuously to indicate that the car is

contaminated with corrosive, toxic, reactive, and/or ignitable material as

appropriate; and

The Installation Commander will ensure that the car is decontaminated in

accordance with applicable DoD and EPA requirements.

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