Friday,December 7, 2007

By Tom Loftus
tloftus@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

RICHMOND, Ky. -- An Army official confirmed today that an August leak of deadly nerve agent from a canister at the Blue Grass Army Depot was the largest ever detected there.

But Lt. Col Tom Closs, commander of Blue Grass Chemical Activity at the depot in Madison County, also said officials have no evidence that any dangerous level of the agent escaped from the igloo in which the container was stored.

"There's no indication that we have that would point to an agent escape into the atmosphere," Closs said.

Closs said officials came to this conclusion because no one has reported any symptoms of exposure to the GB, also called sarin, that leaked from a one-ton container in the igloo in late August. He also said that atmospheric modeling done showed no release that would have posed a public health risk.

"I have over 150 employees that are trained constantly to observe symptoms of nerve agent exposure at the lowest levels," Closs said at a news conference by officials to answer questions about the leak and a plan announced Thursday to destroy the agent that leaked.

Closs said he was pleased by the process that led to the decision to destroy the leaking container of sarin, plus two similar containers that contain the agent.

"I don't want it to happen again. And that is why we're here today to talk about what we're going to do about it. I don't want to put my workers at risk," Closs said.

The leak was detected Aug. 27 by a monitoring device that measures air levels in the igloo once per week. That means the leak could have occurred as early as Aug. 20, the previous time the air was monitored.

Air vents on the igloo used to help control humidity levels were open during that week.

Air readings at the igloo showed the nerve agent was as much as 85 times the military’s safe exposure limit for the public, according to a Sept. 19 letter to the state environmental officials from Army Col. Richard Mason Jr., commanding officer at the depot.

But Closs said this morning those readings were not high enough to present an immediate danger.