Testing News Service Update August 21, 1996

CONTROVERSIAL NERVE GAS BURNER FIRES UP IN UTAH

By: M Bright
Tooele Army Depot
Tooele County, Utah
August 21, 1996

Barring the outcome of a last minute appeal to the Utah Solid and Hazardous Waste Control Board the United States Army's $400 million chemical-weapons incinerator will begin its first operational burn of deadly nerve gas weapons. The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF) located in the remote and sparsely populated Rush Valley 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City will incinerate the first of millions of obsolete and leaking chemical weapons. The incineration of one of 28,945 M55 rockets filled with deadly GB nerve agent marks the beginning of a seven year operation planned to destroy chemical weapons now stored at the Tooele Army Depot.

The start up burn comes after more than a decade long controversy about how to safely dispose of the aging weapons, and less than a week after U.S. Federal District Judge Tena Campbell tossed out a request from several environmentalist organizations for an injunction to prevent the facility from starting operations. Serious safety and environmental concerns still hang over the facilities plans to burn over 14,000 tons of toxic nerve gas and other chemical warfare agents.

In addition to the M55 nerve gas filled rockets the Tooele Army Depot stockpiles a variety of other weapons as well. These include such things as over 1.1 million artillery projectiles, rockets, mines, bombs, and 1 ton containers of chemical, nerve, and blistering agents. Added together these weapons make up 44% of all such weapons currently held by the United States.

Critics of the facility have charged that the accident potential of the site located close to the heavily populated urban areas of Salt Lake City and Utah Counties ran the risk of killing thousands. They also have charged that routine emissions from the plant's stacks of such deadly chemicals as dioxins and PCBs would be much higher than the Army has claimed and would result in higher rates of cancers and other illnesses. In justifying these claims they have pointed to the scores of operational and safety problems at the Army's test and development facility located on Johnston's Island in the Pacific.

After having their request for an injunction halting start-up of the facility Attorneys for the Chemical Weapons Working Group, Sierra Club and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation late on August 20 asked the Utah Board of Solid and Hazardous Waste to revoke temporarily the operating permit it had granted the Army for operation of the incinerator until two separate appeals of the state permit are heard. The state board today announced that they have set a meeting Thursday morning at 9:00am to consider the request.

Even in the unlikely event the Waste Board should vote to revoke the Army's permit it will not come soon enough to stop Thursday's proposed start-up burn. Utah's open meeting laws require that all meetings of this nature can only be held after 24 hours' notice has been given. Therefore the Board could only act to halt subsequent planned incinerations. Either way the Army's first burn will go as planned. Regardless of the outcome additional legal actions will no doubt take place in an attempt to stop full scale operation of the facility.

Once in operation the TOCDF will conduct trial burns for a year to monitor operation and performance of the facility. Should the result of the trial burns prove satisfactory the facility would begin round the clock operation until all 14,000 tons of chemical weapons now at Tooele Army Depot have been incinerated.

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