The U.S. Army wants Tooele County residents to know there is no longer a threat for a chemical nerve agent leak at Deseret Chemical Depot south of Tooele. Weapons containing those agents no longer exist.

The U.S. Army wants Tooele County residents to know there is no longer a threat for a chemical nerve agent leak at Deseret Chemical Depot south of Tooele. Weapons containing those agents no longer exist.

After nine years of hard work from 1,500 employees, the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal (DCD) facility recently destroyed the last of the VX nerve agent stockpile. Tooele County Commissioners signed a proclamation Friday to commemorate the event.

"This milestone represents the destruction of the entire stockpile of nerve agents GB and VX," according to DCD officials. "With this achievement, the DCD and Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF) workers have tremendously reduced the risk to the surrounding community associated with the continued storage of the aging chemical weapons."

Tooele County Commissioner Dennis Rockwell thanked employees at Deseret Chemical for their hard work in destroying the deadly munitions. He said leaders at DCD have been cooperative with community leaders.

"They always kept us in the loop as to what was going on & good, bad or whatever," Rockwell said.

Speakers at the event shined the spotlight on those who work at DCD.

"The true heroes are those who get inside the protective gear and do the grunt work on a day-to-day basis," said Gary McCloskey, general manager of TOCDF site contractor, EG&G Defense Materials, Inc.

The Army has safely stored approximately 45 percent of the nation's original chemical weapons at DCD since 1942. In August of 1996 the Army began disposing of these weapons at the TOCDF.

Project Manager Ted Ryba said only one other storage facility, in Russia, housed more chemical munitions than Deseret Chemical.

The facility eventually destroyed 12.1 million pounds of GB and 2.7 million pounds of VX.

Ryba mentioned that the depot will continue to operate until about 2010 while it destroys mustard agent.

Commander of DCD, Col. Raymond Van Pelt, thanked the county commissioners and Tooele Mayor Charlie Roberts for their support. He also recognized the work of Tooele County Emergency Management Director Kari Sagers. Van Pelt said Sagers's work has been "first-rate."

"We have always had a hotline between Deseret Chemical and the county," Sagers said. "They always let us know what is going on. Whether they are conducting a test or whatever."

Sagers has been involved in providing communications and public safety awareness now for almost 20 years. She said the siren system was built to let people know if there was an emergency in regard to chemical releases and after the depot is eventually destroyed in 2010, the sirens can still be put to good use to alert residents of other types of emergencies.

"From the start we found the leaders at Deseret Chemical to be very dedicated in their efforts to ensure the safety of people of Tooele County," Sagers said.

Eventually, Deseret Chemical will eat itself down. In other words, the facility itself will slowly be torn apart and destroyed. Deseret Chemical's recent listing on the base closure list was not a surprise.

From 1993 to 1996, the facility underwent a testing phase known as "systemization" where treatment and disposal systems were tested to ensure safe operations. The Army began actual weapons disposal operations in August of 1996.

The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility uses high-temperature incineration technology. The Army has employed this technology for more than decade, safely and successfully disposing of more than a quarter of the nation's original chemical weapons.

e-mail:mwatson@tooeletranscript.com