Anniston Star
April 10, 2003

Officials suspend operations at Tooele incinerator

By Nathan Solheim
Star Staff Writer
04-10-2003

TOOELE, Utah

Operations at the chemical weapons incinerator in Tooele, Utah have been suspended since Tuesday morning after officials found an unusual chemical reaction.

Officials with the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility downplayed the incident Wednesday, saying it compares in severity to a leaking rocket - a fairly minor occurrence.

No employee was exposed to agent nor was any released into the environment, officials said.

"We put out the minutia because people have a right to know what's going on," said Alaine Southworth, a spokeswoman for the Tooele incinerator.

Officials said water somehow got mixed with VX agent in a holding tank just before the gas gets pumped into a liquid incinerator. The mixture produced a slow chemical reaction that needed more study.

Southworth couldn't say how the water got into a holding tank, which stores chemical agent after it is removed from a munition.

Calhoun County Commissioner Eli Henderson said the incident bodes ill tidings.

"We're going to have some problems similar to those when this incinerator fires up," Henderson said. "We can expect, I think, a lot of delays, they're going to encounter a lot of problems. I think you add a year or two to burn time for incidents like what's happening at Tooele."

Mike Abrams, an Army spokesman at Anniston's incinerator, said the incident is likely to result in some valuable information for the Anniston incinerator.

"The good news for us is that we will be informed about this once all the details are crystal clear," Abrams said. "And we will be able to put that into the database and use that to prepare for our own VX operations in the future."

Abrams said the Anniston incinerator starts destroying GB nerve agent and then moves on to VX agent. VX won't be destroyed for at least two years after the initial start-up.

There is still no clear indication of when the Army will begin destroying the chemical weapons currently stored at the Anniston Army Depot.

Longtime incineration opponents don't view the Tooele incident as a minor problem.

"It's like an ongoing saga of the performance not equating to the advertisement," said Craig Williams, who heads the Chemical Weapons Working Group. "It's just one glitch after another with these things, and this is just the latest one."

The Tooele incinerator was shut down earlier this summer after a worker was exposed to GB agent while the facility was retooling to start destroying VX.

Southworth said the latest incident isn't expected to shut the incinerator down for long.