By Dawn House
The Salt Lake Tribune
TOOELE -- The extended deadline
of 2007 for destroying all deadly chemical weapons stockpiled at the Deseret
Chemical Depot should be achieved, Gen. Paul Kern, head of the U.S. Army
Material Command, said Tuesday.
The depot, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, has destroyed 45 percent
of the nation's largest stockpile of chemical weapons.
The target date for the incineration of all agents at the Utah depot has
been extended from 2003 to 2007 because of leakages and shutdowns. Nationwide,
all chemical weapons are to be destroyed by 2012.
Previously, citizen groups have charged that the Army is needlessly endangering
Americans by continuing to burn chemical weapons. During the past decade,
half the nation's eight stockpile sites have switched to a proven process
that neutralizes, rather than incinerates, the chemicals.
Kern said Utahns can be assured that "air they breathe, the water they drink
and the highways they travel" are safe around the depot.
Besides improving the depot's monitoring systems, the workers themselves
"are self-policing," he said.
In November, workers at the Utah depot destroyed the last chemical-agent-filled
M55 rocket. The destruction of the final rocket containing VX eliminated the
single greatest risk involving the release of chemical agents from the storage
stockpile, depot officials have said.
VX is a nerve agent so powerful that a single drop on the skin can result
in death within about 15 minutes.
It works by disrupting the nervous system and causing breathing to stop.
The agent has a thick, oily consistency that allows it to be sprayed on plants
prior to enemy troops marching through an area.
It remains toxic for at least several days. The destruction of all VX munitions
and stores is expected to be completed in about a year.
After that, the plant will enter the final phase of the weapons destruction
program involving mustard gas.
The destruction campaign started in 1996 when a plant incinerator began burning
the depot's 13,616 tons of chemical warfare agents in accord with international
treaties signed by more than 200 countries.
dawn@sltrib.com