Army wants to destroy nerve agent
$1.7 million plan to be aired today
Army wants to destroy nerve agent
$1.7 million plan to be aired today
By James R. Carroll
jcarroll@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
WASHINGTON -- The Army today will propose bringing a special disposal unit next spring to the Blue Grass Army Depot to destroy nerve agent that leaked from a container last summer.
The leak of GB, also known as sarin, was discovered in a storage igloo on Aug. 27 at a level nearly 85 times the military's safe exposure limit for the public. The leak may be the largest ever detected at the depot, but Army officials said it posed no danger to workers or the public.
Details of the leak were outlined in documents from the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection obtained by The Courier-Journal under the Kentucky Open Records Act and published yesterday by the paper.
According to an Army briefing paper, the sarin destruction operation could be conducted over 80 days at a cost of $1.7 million. Preliminary plans call for actual destruction of the agent to begin in March and end in April.
The sarin that will be destroyed is in a one-ton container that leaked and in two similar containers in the same storage igloo.
Plans for the disposal project will be outlined today at a meeting in Richmond, Ky., of the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board, a citizens' group.
"Clearly something should be done in short order to prevent repeated agent incidents associated with these particular storage items," Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Brea, Ky.-based advocacy group, said in a statement. He is co-chairman of the community advisory board.
Army and Kentucky officials discussed the plan yesterday morning. The state must approve the plan.
Anthony Hatton, assistant director of KDEP's Division of Waste Management, said the state will support the Army project "as long as it can be done safely and meet the requirements we have in our statutes."
"It's a win-win for everybody," he said in an interview. "It's a liability that could be removed if it was managed and treated."
The depot is storing 523 tons of chemical weapons containing sarin, VX and mustard gas. A disposal facility is under construction, and Congress has imposed a 2017 deadline to get the job completed.
The sarin would be neutralized using a series of chemical reactions inside a 20-gallon reactor. The process has been used at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and at the Newport Chemical Agent Destruction Facility in Indiana.
Dave Easter, spokesman for the depot, said the 1-ton container that leaked has been at the depot for at least a decade. It contains sarin, decontamination liquid and other materials generated when the Army evaluated the contents of M55 rockets, he said.
In 2004, container plugs showed corrosion, so some of the load in the leaking container was transferred to two additional containers, Easter explained. The three are the only 1-ton containers at the depot, he said.
According to the Army briefing paper, the other two containers are showing corrosion similar to the leaking container.
Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (202) 906-8141.