Deseret News
June 28, 2003

Tooele depot gets clean bill of health

The Tooele Army Depot has been given a clean bill of health from a federal public health agency.

But the public has until July 25 to comment on the report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), an arm of the Centers for Disease Control.

In its public-health assessment, the agency drew the following conclusions:

• Exposure to contaminants in groundwater from on-site drinking water wells poses no past or current health hazard.
• Exposure to contaminants from off-site municipal and private wells poses no past, current or apparent future health hazard. Private wells located within one mile of the northeast corner of the Tooele Army Depot may be affected by toxic chemicals, but the water quality is OK for irrigation and livestock.
• Exposure to air contaminants from open burning and detonation activities does not pose a health hazard to residents living close by. But activities prior to 1990 were conducted on a larger scale, and ATSDR considers the health hazard prior to that date to be indeterminate.

Tooele Army Depot has developed a public health action plan. The U.S. Army has installed a groundwater system and is analyzing the extent of the off-site contamination.

The public health assessment can be found at the Tooele Army Depot, Tooele Public Library, Tooele County Bookmobile Library in Grantsville and Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

Comments can be mailed to the Chief, Program Evaluation, Records and Information Services Branch, ATSDR, 1600 Clifton Road, NE (MS E-10), Atlanta, GA 30333.