FRIDAY
AUGUST 13, 2004


Tooele facility worker investigated
On suspension: He is suspected of silencing an alarm system that would detect chemical agents

By Dawn House
The Salt Lake Tribune
 

A worker at the Army facility in Tooele County that is destroying chemical weapons is being investigated on allegations that he silenced an emergency alarm system.
  
The commander of the Deseret Chemical Depot, where aging chemical weapons are stored, has asked Army officials to review an internal investigation of the employee, who has been suspended.
 
The man, who worked at the adjacent Tooele Chemical Disposal Facility, is suspected of making "improper adjustments" to a chemical agent monitoring system on the burn plant's stack, said depot spokesman Chuck Sprague.
  
The changes were made to an Automatic Chemical Agent Monitoring System, or ACAMS unit, an alarm monitor that detects chemical agents.
  
The ACAMS generate some 800 pages of data a day, and are geared to shut down an agent-feed mechanism into the plant's furnaces if chemical agent is detected in the stack.
   
The worker is suspected of altering data in a way that effectively silenced the alarm that would shut down the machine.
   
So far, the systems contractor for the plant, EG&G, has reviewed   more than 30 million lines of data, said Sprague.
  
Officials say no deadly VX agent was released into the atmosphere.
  
"Initial review of independent monitoring equipment data has confirmed that there were no instances of chemical agent release from the plant," said Ted Ryba, acting site project manager.
  
EG&G has been investigating the alleged misrepresentation of the monitoring records for the past three weeks.
  
The investigation, which initially focused on monitoring that occurred on July 16, has turned up several other irregularities   that date back to April, said Sprague.
  
The employee worked for Battelle, EG&G's monitoring subcontractor.
  
Col. Ray Van Pelt, who assumed command of the depot on July 22, has asked a technical team from the Army's Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen, Md., to review the internal investigation.
  
The Tooele County installation, 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, is one of nine sites in the United States where the nation's agent stockpile is stored and one of four American facilities that are destroying chemical weapons.
  
Meantime, VX destruction operations are   continuing at the Utah plant.
  
The chemical agent is so powerful that a single drop on the skin can cause death within 15 minutes.
  
In a separate case, depot supervisor David James Yarbrough currently is serving a six-month prison sentence for falsifying air-quality results.
   
Yarbrough was found guilty last year of omitting data or misreporting test numbers so monitoring units that determine if any toxic gases are being released into the air falsely appeared to be working. He maintains his innocence.