HEAVY METAL—BANNED
Royar told Quinn that he didn’t just want to meet current requirements, he wanted to exceed them—to be the leader in safety for aviation.
are fitted for a respirator, Quinn explained. Each person must have the respirator fitted specifically for his or her own use, and the filters must be checked for clogs and deterioration regularly, he said.
Safety officers perform “swipe tests” of the area, according to ACGIH standards, to monitor the level of hexavalent chromium dust in the air. Personnel in these areas are also checked medi- cally. “If it’s determined that an area has elevated chromate levels, at that point we ensure our employees in that area are medi- cally tested. Tat medical surveillance includes regular blood tests and things of that nature to ensure our workforce remains safe,” Quinn said.
Recently, Quinn performed an inspection at a paint shop at Corpus Christi Army Depot, AMCOM’s aircraft industrial facility in Texas. While performing his inspection, the facility manager approached Quinn and showed him around the shop. “He says, ‘Are you working with the team that’s eliminating the hexavalent chrome from the process?’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we are.’ He … shook my hand and he said, ‘I want to thank you,’ ” Quinn said. “ ‘You’re making a safer workplace for us and that makes a difference.’ ”
“We have literally removed a health risk from the work environ- ment, ultimately removing the risk to our workforce, removing the requirement for them to be medically surveilled,” Quinn said.
CONCLUSION AMCOM is pursuing a number of heavy metal mitigation and replacement projects, beyond hexavalent chrome, to help ensure the health and safety of its workforce, Feathers said. But the removal of hexavalent chromium primer remains AMCOM’s current focus because it is so widely used and affects so many different installations. Tree other efforts are being worked concurrently for hexavalent chromium removal. Zirconium oxide, which removes hexavalent chromium from many treatment
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processes, is in the final stages before implementation. It should go into use near the end of this fiscal year. In addition, AMCOM is already using tagnite, another pretreatment coating, on magne- sium aircraft parts at Corpus Christi Army Depot. Replacement of sealants containing hexavalent chromium used throughout aircraft is also being addressed, and is expected to be pushed to the fleet by the end of the year.
Te process of retrofitting the current fleet and incorporating Class N primers into the production line can get expensive— establishing a new plating line could cost $3 million or $4 million, Feathers said—but it’s worth it.
“Te cost associated with supplies and equipment—while not insignificant—pales in comparison to that of health care costs and loss of experienced professionals in the workforce due to illness,” Quinn said. “Te real cost savings is in the health and well being of the workforce, a healthy workforce means longev- ity, stability and sustained productivity.”
“Under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Royar, we helped build a diverse and capable Army team, identified a common issue, developed a protection and replacement strategy, validated alter- natives, obtained Army approval for the alternatives use and built consensus across aviation commands to stop using hexavalent chromium,” he said.
AMCOM’s goal is to remove or mitigate heavy metal risks to the Soldier and the Army's sustainment workforce. Tis effort will enable all aircraft that will remain in the Army's inventory to become chrome six free. In addition, these advances are being communicated to the rest of DOD and industry to remove them during initial production. However daunting, AMCOM hopes to remove hexavalent chromium from the fleet by the mid 2030s.
“Te Army and our higher command, the Army Materiel Command, are committed to a safe environment for its workforce and Soldiers,” Quinn said. “Tis hexavalent chrome replacement program on Army aircraft is just one example where AMCOM is playing our role in that commitment.”
For more information, go to
https://www.amcom.army.mil/.
JACQUELINE M. HAMES is an editor with Army AL&T magazine. She holds a B.A. in creative writing from Christopher Newport University. She has more than 10 years of experience writing and editing news and feature articles for publication.
Army AL&T Magazine
Fall 2021
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