|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Deseret CW Risk Down by “99 Percent,” U.S. Army Says
The threat posed by chemical weapons stored at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah has been almost fully reduced following elimination of sarin and VX nerve agent stockpiles, the Tooele Transcript Bulletin reported Friday (see GSN, Oct. 4, 2005). “The estimated risk has now been reduced by 99 percent,” the U.S. Army said in a press release. The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in 2003 finished destruction of 6,000 tons of sarin stored at Deseret, and last year eliminated the facility’s 1,300-ton stock of VX. All that remains is 6,000 tons of mustard agent. “We started operations by disposing of the [sarin] and VX nerve agents which posed the greatest risk. We have been sampling containers of blister agent and should be ready to begin destroying mustard in the spring or summer. It will take five years to finish the mustard,” said Gary McCloskey, general manager for contractor EG&G Defense Materials Inc. The only risk from the mustard agent for people living downwind of Deseret would come from a large fire at the facility, McCloskey said. After the mustard agent is eliminated, the depot will remain open for two years for cleanup and equipment-destruction operations, the Transcript Bulletin reported (Mark Watson, Tooele Transcript Bulletin, Jan. 27).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
