The Army now has at least 1,655 good reasons to destroy its aging chemical arms quickly. That's the number of leaks of nerve or mustard gas found at bases nationwide.
Utah's Tooele Army Depot stores a whopping 1,204 of those leaking arms (73 percent of the national total), which have been placed in protective canisters and locked away in dirt-covered concrete igloos.Worse, the number of leakers is skyrocketing as the stockpile ages. The Army now is finding as many new leakers in a month as it used to find during a year, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Deseret News.
That worsening condition is one reason the Army wants to continue chemical arms storage and destruction at Tooele, even though it proposes to transfer or close virtually all other missions there as part of national base closures. Tooele stores 42 percent of the nation's chemical arms.
The situation also raises questions about whether delays in building most arms-destruction plants nationwide - because of protests by groups worried about their safety - may actually be increasing danger.
Army documents show the rate of new leaks is increasing dramatically in the stockpile that dates back to World War II.
For example, averages computed by the Deseret News from Army data show the military found about 23 leaks a year in its chemical stockpile between 1945 and 1985. That grew to 94 a year from 1986 to 1991 and to a rate of 254 a year from 1992 to 1993.
That means a new leak appears about 1 1/2 days nationally.
Tooele has found similar growth. It found an average of 20 new leakers a year between 1945 and 1985. That more than doubled to 55 a year between 1986 and 1991, and doubled again to an average of 109 during fiscal 1992 and the first month of fiscal 1993.
When leakers are found during inspections, they are put in special cases designed to contain fumes and droplets of liquid agent. But last year, Tooele found that 157 cases surrounding leaky arms had themselves also begun to leak - so they were put inside even larger protective cases.
"The leaks are generally very small and do not present danger to the general public," said Marilyn Tischbin, spokeswoman for the program manager of chemical demilitarization at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
She added that leaks are usually so small they can be found only with special detection devices. "They present more danger to workers who have to enter storage igloos or destruction plants than they do to the public," she said.
Tischbin said destruction plants are designed to unpack and destroy nonleaking arms automatically with machines. But once they are placed in protective overpacks, workers in protective suits must manually unpack them and prepare them for destruction.
She added that studies show leaks and the stockpile in general present danger to people off Army bases "usually only in the case of some externally caused disaster such as an earthquake or an airplane crash."
Documents also show leaks are being found in all types of chemical munitions. Ironically, the worse leaks appear to be in old M55 rockets, which no longer have launchers available.
In other words, they could not be used against an enemy - so they now threaten only U.S. troops and neighbors with their leaks.
Documents show Tooele has 678 leaking M55s filled with the nerve agent GB. They account for more than half of all the leaking arms at Tooele and for 40 percent of all leaking arms nationwide.
Tooele also has 215 GB-filled projectiles that are leaking (94 percent of such leaking projectiles nationwide); 209 mustard-agent-filled cartridges and projectiles (80 percent of the national total for such leakers); 71 leaking bombs filled with nerve agent VX (91 percent of the national total); 19 leaking GB-filled bombs (54 percent of the national total); and 12 VX-filled projectiles (71 percent of the national total).
Documents also show Tooele has found leaks during the past seven years in 66 one-ton bulk containers of nerve and mustard agents. Tooele spokesman David Hunt said faulty valves or seals were tightened to stop the leaks, so those ton containers are no longer listed among currently leaking arms.
Tooele has many more leaking arms than its sister bases nation-wide.
The next highest number of leaks at a base is 265 at Anniston Army Depot, Ala. Of note, in 1991 alone Tooele found 264 leaking arms - just one less than Anniston has found total through the years.
The number of leakers at other bases includes 79 at Bluegrass Army Depot in Kentucky; 72 at Umatilla Army Depot Activity in Oregon; 26 at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas; and nine at the Pueblo Army Depot Activity in Colorado.
The Newport Army Ammunition Plant in Indiana also found a leaking one-ton bulk container last year. Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland is the only one of eight stateside bases storing chemical weapons that has no leaking arms reported.
An interesting twist to such information is that groups worried about the danger of burn plants at other bases have managed to delay their construction for years - and maybe forever according to assessments by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
That may actually be increasing the danger from growing numbers of leakers that appear in the meantime. Such groups persuaded Congress last year to delay con-struc-tion of all plants, except at Tooele (which was nearly finished) until a pilot plant at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific completes testing.
Congress also ordered a study, due in December, on whether other alternate means of destruction may exist and may be more safe. Concern is especially high in places such as Lexington, Ky., where an arms burn plant would be only a mile from an elementary school.
The destruction plant in Utah would be at Tooele's South Area, about 20 miles from Tooele City in remote Rush Valley. The $391 million plant is scheduled to be completed this summer and was begun earlier than other plants because Tooele has many more arms to destroy than any other base.
Some have worried that protests at other sites could make Tooele the only plant to ever be built in the states. But the Army has said it opposes transporting arms from other sites to Tooele for destruction because of their worsening condition and because of likely protests from states along delivery routes.
Another twist to the data is that Utah officials have hinted in recent days that they may consider delaying state permits for destruction of arms at Tooele, if the Army proceeds to close most the big job-producing missions there while leaving the "garbage" - chemical arms.
That would allow the number of dangerous leaks to increase before destruction. But some feel it may be a possible negotiating chip that could help save the rest of the base.
Both Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, and Gov. Mike Leavitt have said if the Army closes the rest of Tooele, it should close and transfer its storage and destruction of chemical arms.
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(Color Chart)
Chemical arms leaks
Tooele Army Depot
Tooele Army Depot stores 42% of the nations's chemical arms.
Tooele Army Depot has 72.75% of reportedly leaking chemical arms.
Army storage facilities - U.S.
Tooele Utah
Anniston Alabama
Bluegrass Kentucky
Umatilla Oregon
Pine Bluff Arkansas
Pueblo Colorado
New leaks
Discovered in past 7 years
National Tooele
1986 101 48
1987 101 50
1988 79 40
1989 161 125
1990 94 60
1991 106 62
1992 266 181