Jack Anderson, left, and Bryan Clark place the last VX rocket onto the processing line at the depot.
Deseret Chemical Depot
Deseret Morning News, Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Final VX missile is destroyed at Deseret Depot
By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
The last VX missile was burned at Deseret Chemical Depot on Monday.
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Jack Anderson, left, and Bryan Clark place the last VX rocket onto the processing line at the depot.
Deseret Chemical Depot |
This eliminates the greatest risk
to people living or commuting nearby, according to the base. An explosion
involving a release of chemical agent from the stockpile was thought to pose
the greatest risk to the community.
Meanwhile, on the same day but
at a different Army base in Tooele County — Dugway Proving Ground — a nerve
agent monitor reported low levels of GB vapor. Paula Nicholson, Dugway spokeswoman,
said workers were calibrating equipment when an alarm sounded, indicating
levels substantially below harmful concentrations.
Three employees went to an aid
station and received medical tests. Their blood samples showed no indication
of exposure. An investigation is continuing, Nicholson said.
Dugway's Melvin Bushnell Materiel
Test Facility, where the incident occurred, researches detection systems
to warn of chemical attack and looks for ways to improve protective clothing.
It uses small quantities of nerve agent in its experiments.
Deseret Chemical Depot, on the
other hand, is where chemical arms were stockpiled and are being destroyed
in the Army's $1 billion incinerator. Before the plant began working in 1996,
the stockpile amounted to more than 13,617 tons of nerve and blister agent.
Included in the total were 28,945
M55 rockets, each carrying 10 pounds of either GB or VX nerve agent.
In March 2002, the incinerator
completed its destruction of GB, which had been in the form of projectiles,
rockets, airborne spray tanks, bombs and storage containers. That left blister
agent and VX nerve agent yet to destroy. The VX campaign began March 28,
2003, tackling rockets first.
The depot stored about 1,356 tons
of VX, with 39,660 pounds of it in M55 rockets. Altogether, the depot had
3,960 of the VX-loaded rockets.
With the destruction of the last
VX rocket, Col. Peter Cooper, depot commander, said a great milestone was
passed for workers in the storage area and incinerator. It also is a milestone
for the nation, he said in a press statement.
"It shows the world we're serious
about eliminating the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons and protecting Americans
from an aging chemical stockpile," Cooper said.
Dale Ormond, Army site project
manager of the incinerator, was quoted as saying rockets were destroyed first
in both the VX and GB agent campaigns because of concerns about the stability
of the propellants in the weapons.
Steve Frankiewicz, general manager
of incinerator operations and of maintenance contractor EG&G Defense Materials
Inc., added in the press statement, "Our workers safely handled thousands
of these deteriorating rockets and warheads, and the community is safer today
because they're gone."
The VX stockpile is expected to
be destroyed by late summer 2004. Then other chemical arms will be tackled.
"Less than 7,510 of the stockpile's 13,617 tons of nerve and blister agent remains to be destroyed," spokeswoman Alaine Southworth said in the statement. Chemical operations at the plant are predicted to be completed in 2007.
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
© 2003 Deseret News Publishing Company
