Army takes 30 years to admit to nerve gas sheep deaths
(The following is excerpted from the April 1998 issue of "Common Sense", the newsletter of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, published by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation.)
The weather was far from optimal on March 13, 1968. There were ominous thunderheads and shifting winds. It was not the best day to play with nerve gas, but a bunch of VIPs were visiting Utah's Dugway Proving Grounds and the Dugway crew was eager to show off. A Phantom jet loaded with more than a ton of nerve agent in a spray tank closed in on its target and expelled its load. And then some. Apparently, a valve didn't close and about 20 pounds of VX agent was inadvertently sprayed beyond the target zone. Soon after, about 30 miles away in Skull Valley, sheep started to convulse and die. Over the next few days, more than 6,000 sheep sickened, dropped, shuddered and expired.
The Army denied any responsibility, though they eventually compensated the sheep owners for their loss. Today, they still deny responsibility. Data on the sheep, they say, is "inconclusive." But a recently discovered Army document says otherwise. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the report confirms that traces of VX were found in the death zone. Added to other reports showing chemical indications of nerve agent in body samples from the dead sheep, the new evidence closes the case on the Army's responsibility.
Between 1951 and 1969, over 1,600 open air "field trials" using live nerve agent were conducted at Dugway. More than 55,000 chemical rockets, artillery shells, bombs and other munitions were blown up to understand how nerve agent would be dispersed in combat. All totaled, a half million pounds of agent were released to the wind -- that's the equivalent of 3.5 trillion lethal doses. Rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs, horses, cows, monkeys and even antelope were used and killed in the tests. Army documents reveal that the tests were not particularly successful. Often, less than 20 percent of the agent hit the target grids. Where the rest of it went is anyone's guess. Sometimes shells and rockets went astray and didn't explode. More than 1,400 square miles of public land in Utah is now contaminated with unexploded ordnance, some of it containing nerve agent. Open air testing was banned in 1969.
Guinea pigs were not the only guinea pigs. The Dugway Workers League has gathered the names of more than 300 former Dugway workers who are chronically ill. They suspect exposure to nerve agents, pathogens which were also open-air tested, and shots they received. It is hard to document their claims since the medical records for most of them are missing. Health problems were highly concentrated in families who were downwind from Dugway in the '60s. Their health complaints are remarkably similar to those of Gulf War vets exposed to small amounts of nerve agent. Then there are the residents of Skull Valley who suffered flu like symptoms after the '68 sheep kill and have suffered long term health problems since. The Army never did any follow-up studies on workers or civilians. In 1996, West Desert HEAL did a community health survey of residents of Grantsville, a small town near Dugway, and found high rates for cancer, birth defects and other chronic illnesses.
Today, the Army is trying to remember where it buried those sheep and the denials continue. First they acted recklessly, then mistakes were made and a thirty year cover-up followed. Now they want to use a controversial method for destroying nerve gas in our back yards. The incineration program is many years behind schedule and ridiculously over budget, the pilot plant is plagued with problems, and a parade of whistleblowers has marched out of their Utah bomb burner. Trust us, they say, we know what we're doing. Who do they think we are? Sheep?
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