Anniston Star
May 14, 2003

Chemical agent leaks detected at Anniston Army Depot, Aberdeen facility

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
05-14-2003

Three leaking rockets were discovered during a routine inspection of the chemical weapons stockpile at the Anniston Army Depot Monday afternoon, officials said.

The rockets contained GB nerve agent, said Army spokeswoman Cathy Coleman. None of the nerve agent escaped from the metal tubes the rockets are stored in, and nobody was exposed, she said.

The same day, a small amount of stray mustard agent was detected inside the chemical weapons destruction facility in Aberdeen, Md. Army experts and government contractors are investigating the incident, officials said.

"There were no injuries, there was no danger to anyone outside the building," said Jeff Lindblad, spokesman for the Aberdeen Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

Workers at the Anniston Army Depot were looking for "leakers" in a storage igloo when they found the leaking rockets, Coleman said. The igloo where the leakers were found is "where most of our leaking rockets come from," Coleman said.

They are still checking the other weapons in the building, she said. When they complete their work, the workers will seal any leaky munitions in individual containers and move them to a specially designated igloo.

Workers found one other "leaker" this year, back in February, Coleman said. Since 1982, they have found about 860 leaking munitions of various kinds.

The Army began storing chemical weapons at the Depot in 1961. It has about 2,254 tons of GB nerve agent, VX nerve agent, and mustard agent.

In 2001, Army contractors finished building an incinerator for destroying the weapons. It has not yet begun to burn live agent.

At Aberdeen, trace amounts of mustard agent were detected near a 170-gallon storage container that had been drained of chemicals, Lindblad said.

The monitor that detected the vapor was only an inch away from the container, he said. Two other monitors in the area - one of them three feet away - did not go off.

"You're talking about a very low level," Lindblad said.

Nine workers were in the area at the time, he said.

"It was a little bit unexpected, but that's the nature of the process," Lindblad said. " the people were trained. They put on their masks and left the building."

In contrast to Anniston, Aberdeen only has mustard agent, and all the chemicals are in standard-sized storage containers, not loaded into weapons.

The destruction process at Aberdeen involves draining the mustard agent from the containers and using a neutralization process to destroy the chemicals.

Aberdeen started operations on April 23, and is not up to full speed yet, Lindblad said. Workers are only handling one container at a time.