Anniston Army Depot
Anniston Army Depot (ANAD) is a major United States Army facility for the production and repair of ground combat vehicles, overhaul of Small Arms Weapon Systems and the storage of chemical weapons, a.k.a. the Anniston Chemical Activity. The depot is located in Bynum, Alabama. It was placed on the NPL Superfundlist in 1990 because of soil and groundwater contamination with antimony, chromium, lead, thallium and trichloroethylene.
The depot is located in Calhoun County, Alabama, 10 miles west of Anniston. It covers 25 square miles (65 km2) of land, or 15,200-acres. Its northern side is the Pelham Range portion of the Fort McClellan. The central and northern portions of the Depot span over 13,000-acres and serve as an ammunition storage area. The southern side of the Depot is the Southeastern Industrial Area (SIA), a 600-acre industrial operations area with more than 50 buildings and a vehicle test track.
As of 2014, the Depot employs 3,400 civilian workers. Tanks and other equipment are repaired and tested, but historically Anniston's a main role since World War II has been as a major munitions storage site. Anniston is one of seven depots in the United States where chemical weapons are stored (7.2% of nation's chemical weapons stockpile). The stockpile has included rockets, bombs, projectiles, and land mines armed with Sarin, VX nerve agent, or mustard gas. The last chemical munitions were destroyed in September 2011.
ANAD is the only depot capable of performing maintenance on heavy-tracked combat vehicles and their components and houses a state of the art 250,000 sq.ft. Small Arms Overhaul facility, which opened in January 2012 to replace an outdated facility. The depot is designated as the Center of Technical Excellence for the M1 Abrams Tank and is the designated candidate depot for the repair of the M60 Patton tank, AVLB, M728, M88 Recovery Vehicle and M551 combat vehicles. During the Iraq War, over 1,000 M1 tanks, Howitzers, and other armored vehicles were stored awaiting re-engineering.
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