Tooele plant may remain closed until fall

Weapons processing has been halted at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility since June, and may not start up again until the fall of 2006. The plant in Tooele, Utah, which has destroyed more than 89 percent of its weapons, is in an extensive switchover period that will move the facility from nerve agent processing to blister agent. The Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility will experience a similar switchover when mustard agent processing begins in three to four years. Tooele is the only weapons-processing facility run by the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency that is not currently destroying weapons. Crews at Tooele have spent the last four months decontaminating every inch of the facility, scrubbing down equipment with a detergent and decontamination solution, said Alaine Southworth, a spokeswoman for the facility. Crews need the time to switch over equipment and safety procedures, she said. “The other agents are nerve agent, and this is a blister agent,” she said. “You change everything from monitoring to the equipment that’s going to process this, and how things are going to be processed through the plant.” The agent – stored in mortar rounds and bulk containers – probably will be destroyed before 2010, Southworth said. The facility also contains tabun, another nerve agent, but there is no timetable for the destruction of that weapon. Tooele has been processing weapons since 1996, and has destroyed 89 percent of its munitions and 53 percent of its total tonnage. The facility announced Monday it has destroyed approximately 18,000 pounds of wastewater from a chemical neutralization process at a research facility employed between 1999 and 2001. Blister agent made up 44 percent of the original chemical weapons stockpile in Anniston. Crews are destroying the last sarin-filled weapons in the Anniston stockpile and should begin processing VX-filled weapons in the first half of 2006. Processing of the blister agent will not begin before 2008. “We do not expect that it will take us as long to initiate mustard processing as our sister site in Utah,” said Mike Abrams, a spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. Anniston’s plant is newer, he said, and workers at the plant will be able to learn from the earlier agent processing at the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific and at Tooele. “We would anticipate five months. We may find out later on that we’re overly optimistic.” About Brian Lyman Brian Lyman covers infrastructure and the cities of Heflin and Lincoln for the Anniston Star. He lives in Anniston. Contact Brian Lyman Phone: Fax: E-mail: 256-235-3544 256-241-1991 blyman@annistonstar.com