By Joe Bauman and Doug Smeath
Deseret Morning News

Environmentalists are outraged that the Base Realignment and Closure Commission has voted to extend the life of Deseret Chemical Depot, but Tooele County officials say such a move could mean more jobs in the area and may be a safer way to destroy conventional weapons.

By keeping the Army's $1 billion incinerator in business beyond the time when it has destroyed all of the chemical arms stored in the Tooele County stockpile, opponents to the facility say it opens the door for the military to ship dangerous material to the state for destruction.

Early this year, the Army seemed to be backing away from the legislative mandate that all eight chemical weapon stockpiles were to be destroyed where they were. The Pentagon began looking into shipping chemical arms from Pueblo (Colo.) Chemical Depot to Utah, but the outcry was so great that it backed off.

With the extension of the Utah incinerator's life, pressure could build to ship in chemical weapons from around the country from stockpiles where destruction plants have not yet been built, environmentalists fear.

The commission's decision "leaves the door open for changing yet another law, the law being that we won't transport the remaining chemical weapons" to another state for incineration, said Steve Erickson, director of the military watchdog group Citizens Education Project.

"The current law is that they have to tear that plant (the Utah incinerator) down when its mission is completed," he added. "How many more times are the feds going to renege on their promises to the people of the state of Utah?"

The country's chemical arms are stored at stockpiles in Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Maryland. They are supposed to be destroyed by 2012 in each of the locations.

But the program is "behind by years and years" with cost overruns going into the billions of dollars, Erickson said. Some plants have not been built yet.

"The reality is anything could happen with that facility as long as it's left open," said Jason Groenewold, director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

That does not necessarily mean it will accept for destruction more chemical weapons, which are now banned by federal law from crossing state lines. Groenewold thinks other dangerous material besides nerve and blister agent might be more likely to come into Utah.

"The military has a lot of hazardous waste and other dangerous materials across the country that they'd love to dump here," he said.

Also, if the base remains open, he wondered, does that lift the Army's obligation to clean it up once it closes? "There is quite a bit of contamination that exists out there," he said.

Tooele County Commissioner Matt Lawrence said the county asked BRAC commissioners to take a closer look at keeping the facility open because it could prove to be a safer way to deal with conventional weapons.

"It's not a new idea," Lawrence said. He said the County Commission's recommendation to BRAC was not specific but that keeping the depot open could be good for the country as well as the county.

"Those of us that have lived in this valley our whole lives are used to munitions being blown up in the open air," he said. "Those days of just blowing up munitions whenever are gone. The attitude in America today is looking for other ways of destroying these munitions, and this is just an idea that deserves a further look."

The retrofit would likely be expensive for the Army, but Lawrence said he believes incinerating conventional weapons at DCD could prove more cost-effective in the long run.

"To retrofit this plant, anything that has had (contact with) the chemical or biological weapons has to be destroyed. Basically, as I understand it, it would be like a plant shell, and they would have to retrofit it, and it would be expensive. But we have at Tooele Army Depot all this old ordnance that is going to have to be dealt with."

Having a new, upgraded way to destroy TAD's weapons could prove to be another benefit to county residents, Lawrence said.

Tooele County residents would also benefit, he said, because the DCD staying open would mean more jobs in the county and would also ensure the land the depot is now on would continue to be useful.

"As a commission, what we're thinking of if that closes (is that) there is a good possibility that we will never be able to utilize any of that property for industry. If it stays open, then we've got jobs and people paying taxes, and that's what we're looking at," Lawrence said. "We're not talking about environmental studies or anything like that. There will be a lot more that needs to be done and looked at."

Senate Majority Leader Pete Knudson, R-Brigham City, whose district includes the depot, called the decision good news. "I'm tickled. That's job security for some good people," he said. "It makes every bit of sense to maintain a facility that has proven it can do the job."

Knudson said the decision also "leaves the door open for future projects and future missions" beyond the depot's 2012 closure date. Just what that would include remains to be seen, but he said he did not anticipate that the materials that might be shipped to the state would pose a danger to Utahns.

Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche
E-mail: bau@desnews.com; dsmeath@desnews.com