WASHINGTON — People who live around the nation's eight chemical weapons storage sites urged the Army yesterday to install new, highly sensitive detectors to speed up warnings when leaks occur.

The cost of installing the devices at all the facilities, including Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot at Richmond and Indiana's Newport Chemical Depot, would be about $25 million.

But the new monitors could detect releases of deadly nerve agents and other chemicals in less than 20 seconds, said Craig Williams, who heads a Kentucky-based coalition of groups representing the sites' neighbors.

"If a chemical agent was released this minute ... it could take up to 12 hours before a community even knew about it," said Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group of Berea, Ky. "Citizens living in these communities deserve better."

At Blue Grass, 30 miles south of Lexington, 523 tons of chemical weapons — including VX, called the world's deadliest substance, mustard agent and the nerve agent sarin — are stored in bunkers. At Newport, less than 100 miles west of Indianapolis, 1,269 tons of VX are stored in similar bunkers.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., has requested $2 million in the 2005 defense spending bill now being considered by Congress to install the advanced chemical monitors at Blue Grass. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., backed the request.

Past incidents of leaks and spills of deadly chemicals and independent recommendations from the National Research Council to improve chemical weapons monitoring have failed to prod the Army to action, Williams said.

Army officials insist that workers at the chemical weapons facilities and nearby residents are protected.

"The current monitoring system we have is state-of-the-art," said Jeff Lindblad, spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen, Md., which oversees the chemical storage and disposal sites.

But Peter Hille, whose house is about six miles from the Blue Grass depot, said the Army needs "to think about the difference between a high level of protection and the highest level of protection."

"It's not the first time we've had a disagreement with the Army about this sort of thing," said Hille, director of the Brushy Fork Institute at Berea College.

The Army uses two monitoring systems at chemical weapons sites. Inside disposal facilities, leaks of deadly agents are checked by highly sensitive devices called Agent Continuous Air Monitoring Systems, which are connected to audible and visual alarms that can be activated when even trace amounts of chemicals are detected.

Those monitors are checked by a backup air sampling device called Depot Area Air Monitoring Systems. The backups are not connected to alarms and are located both inside and outside storage and disposal facilities.

"The systems we have in place were developed decades ago, but are continually going through upgrades and enhancements," Lindblad said. He added that the Army also is studying newer technologies.

Williams, activists from communities near chemical weapons sites, and Bunning and other lawmakers from states with storage and disposal facilities want the Army to adopt infrared monitors to help detect potential leaks.

Studies have shown that the infrared monitors can be set to detect specific chemicals, can cover a broader area than the Army's current system, and would send alerts in seconds, Williams said. The existing outside monitors usually are checked only once every 12 hours, he said.

Lindblad countered that the infrared technology isn't as sensitive as the monitors the Army uses inside the disposal facilities.

But residents near the Blue Grass site said the infrared devices would provide more protection. Hille pointed out there's an elementary school within 1,000 yards of the fence around the depot.

"What kind of monitoring would you want if your kid was in that elementary school?" he said.

Jeanne Hibberd, who lives about five miles from the depot, agreed. She said, "There is a need for the Army to pursue as protective an approach as possible, especially in these heavily populated areas."

The other chemical weapon sites are in Aberdeen, Md.; Anniston, Ala.; Pine Bluff, Ark.; Pueblo, Colo.; Tooele, Utah; and Hermiston, Ore.

The chemicals at Blue Grass are to be neutralized in a process that mixes them with water or a caustic chemical, then superheats them to produce water, carbon dioxide and various salts. The $2 billion project is scheduled to begin around 2010 and finish in about two years.

Newport is preparing to dispose of its chemicals, at a cost of about $1 billion. The process will convert the VX to a less harmful substance by mixing it with a water and hydroxide solution. The disposal could take less than a year.