for immediate release, Friday, July 26, 1996
PATTERN OF COVER-UP AND MISREPRESENTATION REVEALED AT UTAH CHEM WEAPONS INCINERATOR TRIAL; OFFICIALS ADMIT IGNORING REASONABLE RISKS, UNPERMITTED WASTES
Salt Lake City -- U.S. Army and contractor witnesses testifying in a court case seeking to block
start up of the first chemical weapons incinerator on the U.S. mainland have revealed significant
new flaws in plans for the Tooele, Utah facility.
In testimony before Federal Judge Tena Campbell, Tooele Chemical Activity Safety Chief Jeff
Principe, admitted that the U.S. Army's risk calculations for the facility omitted the accidents of
greatest concern. For example, Principe testified that worst-case accident scenarios at the
incinerator should have evaluated the impact of at least 200 pounds of agent being released instead
of the 4.6 pounds used in current modeling. He also conceded that downwind analyses of civilian
casualties were based on one type of agent, GB, instead of the much more deadly VX gas.
Principe added that planned operations, such as handling and incinerating more than one type of
munition at a time, were excluded from the Army risk model. According to Principe, the Army
computer wind modeling program is twenty years old and has never been approved by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
Finally, Principe stated that the Army's Emergency Response Planning Scenario, which was not
approved until after the lawsuit against Tooele was filed, still was incomplete.
In other testimony, Richard Holmes, Associated Project Manager for the Tooele Chemical Disposal
Facility, confirmed that EG&G Defense Materials, Inc., the Army's chief contractor, had generated
and stored hazardous wastes at the facility since 1989 despite its failure to obtain the necessary
permits. Under cross-examination, Holmes also admitted that the Army failed to perform critical
tests to determine the incinerator's ability to destroy highly toxic PCBs contained in chemical
weapon rocket firing tubes.
Plaintiffs in the suit, the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), Sierra Club and the
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation are seeking an injunction to prohibit the Tooele
incinerator from burning chemical agents until a full trial takes place on claims that the facility
violates the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and other federal laws.
Craig Williams, national spokesperson for the CWWG, said "I wish that members of Congress
debating appropriations for the chemical weapons destruction program could sit through this trial.
There's little doubt they would put the brakes on incineration and fund alternatives, as recently
done by the Senate."
Williams concluded, "The Army's pattern of circumventing every standard in order to continue this
program has become so clear that the incineration scheme no longer deserves Congress' support."
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