for more information contact:
Craig Williams (859) 986 -7565
Mick Harrison (859) 321-1586

for immediate release, Thursday, May 2, 2002

Brenda Mugleston, an eight year employee at the U.S. Army's controversial Tooele, Utah chemical weapons incinerator today went public with a list of serious health and safety problems at the facility. She is the latest in a series of plant workers who have filed formal complaints charging that workers are being exposed to dangerous levels of nerve agent and that environmental risks are being ignored or covered up.

In a letter to Tooele Chemical Demilitarization Facility (TOCDF) Plant Operations Manager Jim Clark dated February 17, 2002, Ms. Mugleston writes, "I am concerned that management has placed production over safety which continues to result in workers being exposed to unnecessary dangers." She also charges that "management attitudes and policies are having the effect and apparently the intent of discouraging employees from reporting safety violations and injuries."

Among the problems documented by Ms. Mugleston:

• workers knowingly being sent into "hot" areas using agent contaminated life support air hoses ("hot" areas are those areas where agents are known or expected to be present);
  
• repeated releases of agent and other toxic chemicals to the environment;
  
• incomplete destruction of chemical agents in the deactivation furnace;
  
• recurring failures of management to ensure compliance with safety procedures;
  
• inadequate responses to incinerator waste feed cutoffs resulting from malfunctions;
  
• failure to prepare incident notification reports;
  
• inadequacies in waste and munitions tracking;
  
• shipment of leaking munitions in inappropriate containers into areas where worker are inadequately protected; and,
  
• sending workers into "hot" areas with inadequate protective gear in order to stay on schedule.

Ms. Mugleston currently works as a Brine Reduction and Residue Handling employee, where her responsibilities include environmental inspections for the Brine Surge Tanks, Metal Parts Furnace Cool Down Area, Heated Discharge Conveyor enclosure and the Deactivation Furnace System Cyclone, among other duties.

According to the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a national alliance of organizations seeking to replace incineration with less dangerous nerve agent destruction technologies, the problems documented by Ms. Mugleston plague the Army's incineration program.

"Tooele incinerator managers told a Federal Judge in 1999 that these problems were fixed," explained CWWG director Craig Williams. "But a confirmed nerve agent release in May 2000 and the reports from courageous employees such as Ms. Mugleston demonstrate that these serious safety and environmental issues have not really been addressed."

"Apparently things have gotten worse since the May 2000 agent release," said Williams referring to an incident in which the Army waited four hours to tell officials off-post that nerve agent escaped through the Utah incinerator smokestack. . "Now there are so many agent alarms the Army doesn't even bother to notify their own Emergency Center on the Depot and they completely ignore the required notification to the civilian community."

Similar health and safety concerns have surfaced at other chemical weapons sites. Contractor employees at the Oregon chemical weapons incinerator, currently under construction, are trying to unionize. Workers have linked safety and health concerns to incinerator operations. Citing stories that appeared earlier this month in the Oregon press, Williams pointed out that workers at the Oregon incinerator, slated to go on line in February of 2003, are quoted saying, "Everybody preaches safety as being their No. 1, but when it gets right down to it, it's production that matters." And, "We've got bundled wire everywhere. Exposed conduit. Software problems. We've got pumps that are decaying that haven't even been used yet. In other words, we've got a car that when you step on the brake pedal the headlights come on." According to a spokesperson for Operating Engineers Local 701, "Many people are so worried about the risks to themselves and the community that they plan to leave WDC (Washington Demilitarization Corporation) once the plant goes hot."

Mick Harrison, attorney for the CWWG, also representing Ms. Mugelston and a number of concerned workers at TOCDF, and who has been investigating worker concerns, concluded: "The workers at these weapons disposal plants are performing a valuable public service at the risk of their own lives and in return the Army and their contractors are treating them as if they were expendable. They deserve better."

Previous whistleblowers at the Tooele incinerator include: Environmental Permitting Manager ,Gary Harris; Chief Safety Officer, Steve Jones;. Chief of Hazardous Waste Management, Trina Allen; and former Plant General Manager, Gary Millar, among others.

Copies of the cited letter and documents are available from the CWWG office upon request.

CWWG Home Page

Contact us: Chemical Weapons Working Group Kentucky Environmental Foundation P.O. Box 467 Berea, KY 40403 phone: 859-986-7565 fax: 859-986-2695 For comments about this WWW page contact Lois Kleffman.