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Deseret CW Depot Could House Oil Refinery
The Deseret Chemical Weapons Depot in Utah, slated to be closed by the U.S. Defense Department, could be replaced with an oil refinery, the Deseret Morning News reported today (see GSN, May 16). “That, to me, would be an ideal situation,” Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said. “If you look at what the nation needs — refinery capacity, and we are out of capacity.” President George W. Bush recently said he wants oil refineries to be built on military bases. The Deseret facility is expected to complete the destruction of chemical weapons now stored at the site in 2008. A Utah environmental group is unhappy with the plan. “We already got, what, four [refineries] in the state right along the Wasatch Front,” said Executive Director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah Jason Groenewold. “We’ve got plenty capacity in the state already.” Former Utah congressman Jim Hansen, who sits on the base closing commission, said the facility should remain open and should used to destroy chemical weapon stocks from other U.S. storage sites. “It seems like a waste of money to me,” to tear down the incinerator, Hansen said. “See, what a lot of folks don’t understand is we have a lot of mustard gas already. We just add to the amount, extend the life of the facility three and a half years.” President George W. Bush, however, recently killed Pentagon efforts to consider accelerating chemical weapon destruction efforts by moving weapons from storage depots to existing destruction sites. Opponents have argued that transporting such weapons would be too dangerous (see GSN, May 13; Leigh Dethman, Deseret Morning News, June 3)
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