Depot crew finds nerve gas leak
in igloo
By the
Associated Press and the East Oregonian
HERMISTON - A
monitoring crew found trace amounts of GB, or sarin, nerve agent vapors
today during a routine check of a storage structure at the Umatilla
Chemical Depot.
This is the first gas leak detected since
November. The trace discovery was not a threat to the public, depot
spokesman Jim Hackett said, and the nerve agent did not escape the
igloo in which it was stored.
He said munitions in that igloo
previously had leaked and are double-packed in larger containers for
additional protection. The igloo has a passive filter system that
prevents vapors from leaving.
Hackett said workers entered the
igloo to find the offending leaker, but were unsuccessful. They'll
continue to search until it's found and then will over-pack the
container.
Sarin is a deadly, colorless, odorless, tasteless
liquid that vaporizes quickly. It was used in at least two terrorist
actions in Japan in the 1990s and likely was used in the Iran-Iraq war
of the 1980s.
Hackett said leaks have diminished since workers
finished incinerating the last of the M55 GB rockets in August 2006.
The depot now is processing 155mm sarin artillery shells and plans to
finish the campaign this summer. It will then change over to destroy
the nerve agent VX. After that, the disposal facility will transition
to the final campaign to destroy the 4 million pounds of mustard gas at
the depot.
Hackett said the last munitions should be destroyed by 2010-12.
When
the treaty-mandated disposal program started in 2004, the depot had
about 12 percent of the national stockpile of chemical weapons. Earlier
in March, the depot destroyed its 110,000th munition, moving beyond the
halfway point for the sheer number of munitions on site. As of Tuesday
afternoon, a total of 118,424 munitions had been destroyed. |
