By James R. Carroll
jcarroll@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

WASHINGTON -- Air monitors for the deadly VX nerve agent at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky have been improperly maintained and may have missed leaks, according to an employee at the facility.

But the depot commander disputes the allegation and said VX gas has never leaked at Blue Grass.

Donald Van Winkle of Berea, Ky., who has been operating air monitors at Blue Grass since 2002, said in an affidavit that depot officials gave him inferior equipment and removed his security clearances after he raised safety questions about the monitors.

The affidavit was prepared by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, a nonprofit group based in Washington that works with government whistle-blowers.

The commander of Blue Grass Chemical Activity, the agency in charge of storing and monitoring weapons at the depot near Richmond, denied the allegations.

"We're talking molecule levels of detection. There was absolutely no concern to the public at all," said Army Lt. Col. George Shuplinkov.

PEER has asked the Defense Department's inspector general to investigate Van Winkle's charges. A spokeswoman said it will do so, as it does with all such requests.

Van Winkle declined interview requests, said Richard Condit, general counsel for PEER.

In addition to VX, the depot's 523 tons of chemical weapons include munitions armed with mustard gas and sarin. All are to be destroyed in coming years under an international treaty.

Shuplinkov said the depot uses state-of-the-art monitoring and all the equipment is properly maintained. "We do everything right and safe," he said.

He confirmed that Van Winkle has been barred from going near the chemical weapons during an internal investigation. "It's an administrative, not a punitive, measure," Shuplinkov said.

In his affidavit, Van Winkle said that during training sessions for the air-monitoring equipment used at Blue Grass, he and other workers learned that the sample pads used to filter air for VX were put in the wrong places at the storage igloos.

"In fact, what we learned indicated that we were unlikely to detect VX at all," he said.

If VX was erroneously reported as not present in an igloo, "then when igloo doors were opened some amount of VX may have escaped into the environment," Van Winkle said.

He added that sampling pads were kept in use beyond their effective life of about 30 days, and that air-monitoring equipment had not been properly maintained or had not been certified as ready for operation.

Shuplinkov said more than one accepted way exists for using the sampling pads, and they are changed regularly. And maintaining the air-monitoring equipment is the responsibility of Van Winkle and others who run it, he said.