Demonstration projects were sought for innovative tools, methodologies, or technologies that can reduce the source loading of munitions constituents during standard DoD operations and demilitarization activities. Technologies of interest were those that prevent migration of munitions constituents once they are released from the munitions. Of particular concern was prevention of munitions constituent migration from low order detonations and improvement of blow-in-place (BIP) operations to mitigate munitions constituent migration into the environment. Munitions constituents of concern included propellants such as perchlorate, legacy munitions constituents such as RDX, HMX, TNT, and DNT, as well as the new insensitive high explosives such as NTO and DNAN

In July 2015, the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and ESTCP co-sponsored a workshop on identifying research and demonstration needs for management of munitions constituents. This workshop identified high priority demonstration needs related to conducting operations so as to reduce the source loading of munitions constituents to prevent long term contaminant issues. A more detailed description of these issues can be found in the workshop report. Proposers are strongly encouraged to review the workshop report for additional detail.

Technologies and methods are sought that have well-defined demonstration/validation questions to address. Proposed technologies should have completed all required laboratory work, although site-specific treatability work prior to the field demonstration is acceptable. Demonstrations should address technical and/or regulatory issues that inhibit the widespread use of the proposed approach across DoD. ESTCP supports demonstrations at a scale sufficient to determine the operational performance of the remediation technology and to estimate its expected full-scale costs. Full-scale cleanup of specific sites is not performed under ESTCP. Specific DoD demonstration site(s) may be suggested in the pre-proposal, but are not required.

ESTCP has supported the demonstration of a number of technologies that address issues associated with munitions constituents. Proposers should be familiar with the ESTCP portfolio of technologies and tools in order to avoid duplication of previous efforts. ESTCP project descriptions are available on the ESTCP web site