Utah: Colorado can keep mustard agent

by Karen Lee Scott
Staff Writer

The phrase “not in my back yard” was switched to “not from my back yard,” yesterday when Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) introduced a bill that would prohibit the study of transporting chemical weapons across state lines.

No official plans have been made to move chemical weapons from existing stockpile sites to operational disposal facilities, but the Army has received direction from the Department of Defense to look into such relocation options.

Allard, along with Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), became involved with the proposed bill due to the mustard agents currently stored in Pueblo, Colorado, which could be moved elsewhere, maybe to the Tooele Chemical Disposal Facility located at the Deseret Chemical Depot.

But depot spokeswoman Alaine Southworth told the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin last week that Deseret Chemical Depot doesn’t have any plans for such activities.

The Defense department is investigating possible site switches to see if that can help it achieve the Chemical Weapons Convention’s ‘100 percent destruction’ deadline of April 2012.

Allard and Salazar said they were told last week that a disposal facility was still on the agenda for Pueblo. However when Colorado’s senators were informed of internal Pentagon documents that told of relocation options for Pueblo’s chemical weapons stockpile both were rather upset.

“It is extremely disturbing to me that the Pentagon would study the possibility of relocating the Pueblo’s chemical weapon stockpile after the Pentagon assured Sen. Salazar and myself last week that such an option was unrealistic, not to mention illegal,” said Sen. Allard.

Sen. Salazar said, “We believe we were given a good faith commitment last week that the destruction of the weapons would continue at Pueblo ... and that the munitions would not be transferred elsewhere.”
Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Patrick Wakefield was to send a memo to Allard and Salazar explaining the inconsistency by Jan. 21, but as of this morning no letter had been received.
Allard’s bill seeks to have the Defense department eliminate the Pueblo stockpile onsite and to not proceed with a potentially costly study of alternatives.

In light of the situation, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. also announced his opposition to having the military move additional mustard gas into Utah for disposal.

“There is no way this governor will ever support transporting such toxic chemical weapons into Utah. We will utilize all means to prevent any quantity of mustard gas from moving into the state of Utah,” he said.“This is a particularly dangerous chemical that hasn’t been used by the U.S. Army in warfare since World War I. The safest place to store mustard gas is within the secure confines of the Army base where it is currently stored.”

“Conversely,” Huntsman said, “the most dangerous option would be to ship the mustard gas interstate on a publicly accessible rail route through populated areas.”

Huntsman supports Colorado’s bid to build an incinerator in Pueblo to dispose of the chemical weapons.

“I made a campaign pledge to keep Utah from becoming a dumping ground for such potentially dangerous materials,” he said adding “And I don’t intend to back down from that position now.”

Transportation of chemical weapons across state lines is currently prohibited by Public Law 103-337, but this law could be changed by an act of Congress.

e-mail: kscott@tooeletranscript.com