Five Titan II Nuclear Missile Complexes - CORRECTED toxic survey results at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona  1982 -1983

More information on this website about the original study is located on this following link page.  Davis Monthan AFB Titan II Nuclear Missile Complex Toxic Fuel Study

The corrected spreadsheet pictures are at the bottom of this page. Click on them and they will enlarge.

I have previously said that three of the five Titan II Nuclear Missile Sites included in the Davis Monthan Air Force Base Bioengineering toxic missile fuel study of normal on-alert status would not have met the new 1995 ACGIH 8 hour time weighted averages (TWA) for the Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) component of Aerozine 50. Along with that major component only one of about ten breakdown components of UDMH, N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), was tested for by DM AFB Bioengineering in 1983.

 As I previously stated, the DM AFB Bioengineering team did not correctly follow OSHA or industrial hygiene standards in calculating and reporting their findings in 1983. After I spent way more time on correctly calculating all the TWA’s at all five missile sites in Arizona (based on the correct OSHA equations and correcting for the obvious errors of incorrect use of the sampling times) I am going to have to add more to my previous statement above.

 It is still obvious that three of five of the nuclear missile sites would not have met the new 1995 lowered ACGIH 8 hour time weighted average (TWA) for the Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine (UDMH).  However, more importantly the Titan II Nuclear Missile Sites were contaminated with N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) and none of the five would have passed OSHA regulations in 1983. Self contained breathing apparatus’s (SCBA) should have been worn by all USAF personnel entering the blast lock area and then the silo equipment area and launch duct. This contamination of Titan II Nuclear Missile Sites was pointed out in the 1999 UCLA epidemiology study of aerospace workers in California working around the same toxic chemicals.  In all five of the DM AFB Titan II Nuclear Missile Sites there were amounts of NDMA whether in the launch duct, Level 6 MSA area, or the worse site 571-9  contaminated everywhere except the LCC that triggered the OSHA and USAF regulations for use of a self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). OSHA clearly stated that any detection of any amount of NDMA required use of a SCBA. The DM bioengineering even admitted that fact in the DM study. Instead these incompetent USAF DM AFB bioengineering people said give the people working in the complex a briefing similar to the briefing that PTS personnel got during missile fuel downloads. Nothing about where the maintenance members or daily shift verification crewmembers were going to get the safety equipment or how they were going to detect the NDMA with out new detectors. No detectors were at the missile sites ever to detect NDMA!

 The N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) toxic fumes were regulated during the Titan II years as strict as it is now.

No PEL has ever been established due to NDMA toxicity.  Some screening and risk values have been assessed.

Technical Fact Sheet – N-Nitroso-dimethylamine (NDMA) (PDF)

On page 3 middle of page of this 2017 fact sheet… EPA NDMA residential screening value for air is 7.2 x 10-5 µg / m3 that is 0.000072 µg / m3. This is the EPA value that if contamination is found they want to achieve this number as a clean-up goal. You can breath this amount all day long and not have any health effects.

The NMDA concentration at the Titan II Nuclear Missile Sites was high and way over the residential screening value.  Silo exhaust was measured at 0.81 µg / m3 at site 570-4, 0.73 µg / m3 at site 570-6, 0.61 µg / m3 at site 571-9, 0.92 µg / m3 at site 571-4, and the last of the five missile sites tested was 570-1 and its suspect sample taken on the silo exhaust, in my mind, as the inside of this complex had measurable amounts of NDMA throughout. These NDMA concentration amounts coming from the silo exhaust’s is in line with the amounts at Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Commerce City, Colorado which required SCBA’s.

Between 16-27 June 1980, 2 years before the DM Bioengineering started their botched toxic study of the Titan II nuclear missile complexes in Tucson, AZ, the US Army investigated UDMH, Hydrazine, and NDMA at the hydrazine blending facility at Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Commerce City, Colorado.

Link to article is at: www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a286155.pdf

 Here is the finding of fact from that study:

Due to fluctuating wind conditions and apparent multisources of exposure, N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) is prevalent through the facility. Since there is no OSHA permissible exposure limit (PEL) for NDMA, no safe distance can be established within the hydrazine blending facility where respiratory protection is not required. Therefore, respiratory protection should be required for all entries into the facility when in operation, up to 24 hours after operation, and for all maintenance work on the systems. Since no air purifying respirator has been tested for NDMA, only air supplied or self-contained breathing air respirators are considered adequate.

In 1989 this OSHA bulletin stated it plainly again for other industries with this toxic NDMA problem: https://www.osha.gov/dts/hib/hib_data/hib19891010.html

“OSHA Compliance Officers should be aware of the hazards of N-Nitroso compounds in the rubber and related industries to avoid potential exposures to themselves.”

“Any levels of employee exposure should be considered serious. (Refer to the OSHA Field Operations Manual (FOM) Chapter IV, A.2.a.)”

“At any detectable concentration, respirators should include full facepiece self-contained breathing apparatus operated in a pressure-demand or other positive pressure mode or a full facepiece supplied air respirator operated in a pressure-demand or other positive pressure mode in combination with an auxiliary self-contained breathing apparatus operated in a pressure-demand or other positive pressure mode.”

 Based on my engineering experience and interpretation of the OSHA regulations I reconstructed the DM bioengineering spreadsheets for each Titan II Nuclear Missile Site in the 1983 DM AFB toxic survey. Below is the analysis of each missile site and then a copy of each of the spreadsheets showing the calculations.

 The UDMH TWA is 6.5 ppb after corrections for 24 hour work schedules.

 Correcting for proper 8 hour sampling time increased the sampled TWA’s from the DM study by almost twice their wrong calculations in 1983.

 The Combat Crews health concerns were with the contamination in the Launch Control Center (LCC) of UDMH.

The missile maintenance workers along with anyone else going out into the silo was the UDMH and NDMA contamination.

Here are the toxic concentrations in each complex. Following these verbal notes are the spreadsheets showing the toxic calculations and amounts.

• 1. At Missile site 570-1 UDMH toxic contaminated breathable air was found at the LCC which was 3.6 times the adjusted 6.5 ppb TWA for 24 hour work shift, level 9 P5 Platform 1.2 times the 8 hr 10 ppb TWA, Level 6 MSA Platform 2.4 times the 8 hr 10 ppb TWA, and the top of the W 1.2 times the 8 hour 10 ppb TWA. NDMA toxic contaminated air on the P5 platform Level 9 required a SCBA. 

  2. At Missile site 571-4 UDMH toxic contaminated breathable air was found at the LCC which was 5.7 times the adjusted 6.5 ppb TWA for 24 hour work shift, level 9 P5 Platform 1.6 times the 8 hr 10 ppb TWA, Level 6 MSA Platform 1.5 times the 8 hr 10 ppb TWA, and midway into the W 3.3 times the 8 hour 10 ppb TWA. NDMA toxic contaminated air was coming out of the silo exhaust topside at 0.92 µg / m3 that would have required SCBA. UDMH was not tested for in the silo exhaust. Depending on which way the wind was blowing we were sucking the NDMA fumes right back into the control center. 

  3. At Missile site 570-4 NDMA toxic contaminated breathable air was found at Level 6 MSA Platform which would have required SCBA. I question the balance of the readings in this complex due to NDMA on level 6 and silo exhaust in the quantity detected. NDMA comes from UDMH! There should have been readings of UDMH.  NDMA toxic contaminated air was coming out of the silo exhaust topside at 0.81 µg / m3 that would have required SCBA. Depending on which way the wind was blowing we were sucking the NDMA fumes right back into the control center. 

  4. At Missile site 570-6 UDMH toxic contaminated breathable air was found at the LCC which was 6.4 times the adjusted 6.5 ppb TWA for 24 hour work shift, level 9 P5 Platform (pump failed), Level 6 MSA Platform 6.2 times the 8 hr 10 ppb TWA, top of the W 1.6 times the 8 hour 10 ppb TWA and blast lock area 201 was 1.2 times the 8 hour 10 ppb TWA. UDMH 8.4 times the 8 hour 10 ppb TWA and NDMA toxic contaminated air was coming out of the silo exhaust topside at 0.73 µg / m3 that would have required SCBA. Depending on which way the wind was blowing we were sucking the NDMA fumes right back into the control center. 

  5. At Missile site 571-9. This site is suspect for multiple reasons due to pump failures, and lost samples with abundant NDMA readings all over the complex. NDMA toxic contaminated breathable air was found in blast lock area 201, level 2 equipment area, level 8 launch duct, NDMA toxic contaminated air was coming out of the silo exhaust topside at 0.61 µg / m3 that would have required SCBA. UDMH was not tested for in the silo exhaust. Depending on which way the wind was blowing we were sucking the NDMA fumes right back into the control center.