While Utah is awaiting word on whether nuclear waste will be stored in Skull Valley, we may not have to worry about mustard gas coming to Tooele.

Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, managed to get the Senate Appropriations Committee to add language blocking the shipment of the chemical weapon from Pueblo, Colo. to Tooele for chemical neutralization. The language was included in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill, which now awaits full Senate approval.

It appears that the budget bill may be the only way to get the Defense Department's attention on the matter.

Michael W. Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense, told U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that while his department acknowledges that moving mustard gas to Utah would require an act of Congress, the government remains committed to disposing of the material in Tooele.

In January, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, Matheson and Colorado's senators moved to block a Defense Department plan to ship mustard gas to Utah for destruction rather than spend money on a facility in Colorado.

Federal law bars shipping chemical weapons across state lines because of the dangers these weapons pose, dangers that don't dissipate because the Defense Department has a war to fight, or because the government wants to save a couple bucks.

While mustard gas isn't as lethal as nerve gas, it still poses a significant threat to public health and safety. Mustard gas is a blistering agent that burns the skin and eyes of its victims. If it's inhaled, it can damage the lungs and other internal organs. It either kills people outright, gives them cancer or leaves them disfigured and ailing the rest of their lives.

Unlike battlefield nerve agents that dissipate rapidly, mustard gas has a delayed action: Victims may not experience symptoms for hours after exposure. It also lingers in the environment long after being deployed.

A train or truck accident involving a mustard gas shipment has the potential for killing nearby people or emergency responders who may not be immediately aware of the cargo's deadly nature. A spill would cause severe economic damage in a populated area.

Granted, there are other hazardous materials that are routinely shipped around the country, but those materials are not military weapons designed to kill and maim, and they are shipped in clearly marked containers so police and firefighters know exactly what they're dealing with. It's unlikely the Defense Department would display a hazardous waste placard on the shipment accurately describing what's inside, since that would make it all the easier for a terrorist to turn the shipment into a weapon of mass destruction.

Building a facility to destroy the Colorado cache may not seem cost-effective to the military (news reports estimate the cost at $2.6 billion), but when we're dealing with the lives of people living along the shipping routes, it sounds cheap. By insisting on exploring a Utah option, the Defense Department is saying that Utahns are expendable, as it did during the atomic bomb tests a half-century ago.

Bennett's amendment to the budget bill should get that point across clearly for the Defense Department and spur it into destroying the mustard gas on the current site rather than putting Utahns at risk.