Published: November 27 , 2007

Depot whistle blower's case in court today

Current and former employees of the Blue Grass Army Depot's chemical weapons activity were scheduled to begin giving sworn testimony today in the case of a former employee who reported what he believed were unsafe practices at the activity.

An administrative law judge with the U.S. Department of Labor is to hear witnesses at the University of Kentucky College of Law in the case of Donald Van Winkle.

At least two days of testimony are expected, said Craig Williams of Berea, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group which monitors plans for destruction of the obsolete chemical weapons stored at the depot.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a Washington, D.C.-based interest group is supporting Van Winkle.

According to PEER, Van Winkle alleges:

• Air monitors inside the inside storage igloos at the depot were configured so as to be ineffective.

• Depot employees were not being properly tested for low-level exposures to nerve agent.

• The chemical weapon facility lacked critical preparedness procedures in case of an emergency, provided inadequate maintenance of monitoring equipment and suffered from training gaps among key personnel.

"Many of Van Winkle's disclosures were confirmed in a late October 2007 site inspection by the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection which took the unusual step of issuing notices of violation to the Blue Grass Depot," the PEER statement said. "In addition, Van Winkle's reports are at the heart of an ongoing federal grand jury investigation into base management."

At issue in the hearing this week in Lexington is whether Van Winkle was removed from his job at the chemical activity in retaliation for his reports of safety and security lapses, PEER said.

In an April 2007 interview with the Richmond Register, Van Winkle said he first became concerned about safety at the chemical activity after he and other employees received training from the manufacturer of gas chromatographs used to detect chemical weapons in the storage igloos at the depot.

"We were taught where the monitors should be located, how often they should be inspected and have their filters changed," he said.

"When we got back to the depot, we were told to follow different procedures that would save money."

The alternate procedures caused the monitors to malfunction and fail to give accurate readings, he said.

In 2005, Richmond Mayor Connie Lawson visited a weapons igloo with chemical activity commander Lt. Col. George Shuplinkov, Van Winkle and another employee. The four posed for a photo that was published in the chemical activity’s newsletter. [See below.] After the visit, Van Winkle said he and other technicians discovered that monitoring equipment in that igloo had not been functioning would not have detected leaking agent prior to the officials visit.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 623-1669, Ext. 267.

Donald Van Winkle, far right, then an employee of the Blue
Grass Army Depot’s chemical activity, posed for a 2005
photo in a chemical weapons igloo with from left, employee
Archie Babb, chemical activity commander Lt. Col. George
Shuplinkov and Richmond Mayor Connie Lawson. The
igloo’s monitoring equipment was found to be non-functional
after the visit, Van Winkle claims. rcondit/Special to the Register