SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Army and a contractor
were fined nearly $52,000 for releasing a deadly chemical weapon on a wildlife
sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean, federal environmental officials announced
Wednesday.
An unknown quantity of VX nerve agent was released in
August 2002 at a chemical weapons disposal facility on Johnston Atoll, the
Environmental Protection Agency's office in San Francisco said. The release
occurred when a tray holding remnants of a VX shell was improperly loaded
into an incinerator.
Exposure to the agent can cause paralysis and death
within minutes, but there were no known exposures or reports of harm to any
person or any wildlife, said Dean Higuchi of the EPA.
The atoll, located 825 miles southwest of Honolulu,
is a national a bird sanctuary. It also held more than 6 percent of the nation's
stockpile of chemical weapons - 412,000 different types of explosives, mustard
and nerve agents. Congress ordered the weapons destroyed in 1986.
Disposal began in 1990 at a facility jointly operated
by the Army and its contractor, Washington Group International of Boise,
Idaho. Neither the Army nor Washington Group admitted wrongdoing as part
of the fine.
The Army had agreed to pay nearly $400,000 for previous
violations in 1994 and 2000 involving VX and sarin gas.
More than 4 million pounds of chemical weapons and agents
have been destroyed on Johnston Atoll since 1990. The Army has dismantled
the facility and is in the process of restoring the site to its natural role
as a wildlife refuge.
