Friday, February 24, 2006
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Weapons detector to undergo Utah tests 
Deseret Morning
News graphic
That includes measuring how well it can respond to such attacks if delivered by Scud missiles, artillery barrages or now-infamous "improvised explosive devices" hidden along roadways. Up to 30,000 pounds of explosives will be used, along with tens of thousands of liters of chemicals and biological agents. The tests won't come in Iraq with real weapons. They will come in the Utah desert, with what the Army says are relatively safe materials designed to simulate characteristics of real, deadly chemical and germ weapons. Dugway Proving Ground this week published a legal notice in Utah newspapers saying it performed a required environmental assessment of the planned tests, and found they will have "no significant impact" on people or the environment. It will accept public comments on that report and its findings until March 20 — and then tests are scheduled for April on the detector system with a long name: the Joint Services Lightweight Nuclear Biological Chemical Reconnaissance System. Documents say the tests — which worry at least one local watchdog group — are designed to challenge the detector "with real-world threat scenarios using realistically delivered chemical warfare agent simulants and agent of biological origin simulants." Last July, the Deseret Morning News reported that Pentagon inspectors were complaining that several similar detection systems now in use might not actually work or survive in contaminated areas that they are designed to detect. The Morning News obtained reports by the U.S. Army Audit Agency complaining that several such detection systems either had not been rigorously tested in tough battlefield conditions, or had failed such tests earlier conducted at Dugway. Three-man crews riding either in specially equipped Air Force Humvees or eight-wheel Marines Light Armored Vehicles are scheduled to traverse 14,000 acres of test areas within the Rhode Island-sized base to determine how well the system can detect and handle simulated chemical and germ attacks — and map boundaries of their contamination. Some attacks are designed to be smaller, as if detonated and spread by an improvised explosive device along a road. Some larger attacks are planned, as if they were delivered by an artillery barrage. (Some preset explosive detonations will simulate that). And some "extra large" releases are planned, as if delivered by a Scud missile. A specially equipped helicopter spreading chemicals is designed to simulate that. Documents say up to 30,000 pounds of C-4 explosives will be used in tests to vaporize and spread the simulants. The Army banned using real chemical or germ weapons in open-air tests at Dugway after a 1969 nerve gas accident there killed 6,000 sheep in nearby Skull Valley (and may have caused long-term health problems for some ranchers). So it will use in these tests what the Army says are safer "simulants." That includes the biological agent Bacillus subtilis (Nigervariety). Medical texts say it is not considered dangerous to healthy adults but could cause infections for those who are sick or weak. About 16 pounds of it are planned to be used in tests, and are planned to be spread by a crop duster or a ground-based agricultural sprayer. Chemical arms simulants will include methyl salicylate (wintergreen oil), triethyl phosphate (used in production of some resins and pesticides), acetic acid (the compound that gives vinegar its sour taste and odor), polymethyl methacrylate (a clear plastic) and diethyl malonate (a plasticizer for polymers). Plans call for up to 28,500 liters of those chemicals to be spread by explosives or helicopter. One watchdog group says it is concerned about the tests, mainly because of past secretive experiments (and accidents) that proved to be more dangerous than the Army disclosed at the time. "We are always concerned if you stick soldiers and sailors in tests that might adversely affect their health and welfare, now or in the future. We would have to do some further review before we consider it benign," said Steve Erickson, director of the Citizens Education Project and a longtime critic of Dugway. "We want troops to be well-protected if they are put in harm's way, but this raises red flags that remind us of atomic veterans and Project SHAD (an at-sea series of tests that hit target ships with chemical and germ agents)," incidents where supposedly safe tests hurt or sickened soldiers who participated, he said.
E-mail: lee@desnews.com |