Editorial
Posted on Wed, Dec. 12, 2007
Nerve-gas leak
Public trust in Depot's safety eroding
So it was Aug. 27, except that depot officials omitted some pertinent details from the routine news release: A gallon of nerve agent, the largest leak in the depot's history, had spilled.
And the deadly vapor could have been escaping into the outdoors through open vents in the storage igloo for up to a week before the discovery.
Officials say no chemical agent escaped, but how they know that is unclear since the air in the igloo was being tested only weekly. It's now being tested daily. One of the reasons they say they're sure no poisonous gas escaped is because no depot workers got sick.
These disturbing facts came to light only last week as a result of records obtained by the Courier-Journal from the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection through the state Open Records Act.
The Army has since unveiled a proposal to drastically speed up neutralization of the nerve gas that spilled and 156 gallons of agent that's still contained in three corroding one-ton steel containers, beginning in May at a cost of $1.7 million. They want to bring a mobile neutralization unit from Aberdeen, Md. to do the job.
But how they will repair the damage to public trust caused by this and other troubling episodes is another matter.
The depot's capacity to successfully monitor leaking nerve gas was at the heart of a complaint by a former employee. He claims he was reprimanded after raising concerns that a chemical monitoring device was not being used according to the manufacturer's guidelines. His whistle blower complaint was the subject of a recent hearing.
Before that, the state Division of Waste Management cited the depot for four permit violations and referred nine allegations related to alleged cover-ups and falsified data to criminal investigators.
Among the concerns raised by the state investigators is that workers and managers are not receiving the training necessary "to prevent releases of chemical warfare agents to the environment" or to protect themselves from exposure.
All in all, not a reassuring picture of an operation that's supposed to keep us safe from the aging weapons of mass destruction in our own backyard.