Over the years, the Army has successfully fended off criticism about the safety of its chemical weapons incinerator near Tooele. And it expects to survive the latest round of allegations that the plant poses imminent risks to workers and the public.
"We want (investigators) to look at all the allegations, and when they are through we hope it brings some confidence back to the community that it is safe," said Marilyn Tischbin, spokeswoman for the Army's chemical demilitarization program.But the Army is not up against your ordinary whistle-blower this time. Past complaints have come primarily from military watchdog groups or laborers at the plant and were quickly resolved. Now it must contend with Steve Jones, the facility's former chief safety officer who was recognized as one of the military's top safety inspectors during his 20-year career at the Pentagon.
Jones' story of getting fired for refusing to back down from his claims that the plant cannot operate safely has captured national headlines. More significantly, it has prompted four independent investigations into the incinerator about 20 miles south of Tooele.
A fifth probe was proposed Wednesday by the governor's science adviser Suzanne Winters. But a citizens advisory commission appointed to monitor the incinerator and chaired by Winters opted instead to review the results of the ongoing investigations by the Utah office of Occupational Safety & Health, Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste, the Army's Inspector General and the House Armed Services Committee.
Jones told the Utah Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission that when he took the job as chief safety officer for contractor EG&G at the Tooele incinerator, he heard it was the best facility of its kind. Taxpayers had spent more than $400 million on the huge, high-tech furnace scheduled to come on line in February.
The incinerator is designed to chop up and burn some 14,000 tons of deadly chemical weapons stored at Tooele Army Depot. The rockets, mortars, mines and one-ton containers have been stored at Tooele since World War II and comprise 42 percent of the nation's stockpile. Similar plants are to be built at seven other stockpile sites around the country.
But when Jones arrived at Tooele in June, he said he found a disaster waiting to happen at Tooele. Although the plant was in the last phases of testing before handling actual chemical agents, Jones said he found no safety program in place, few workers trained at their tasks or in safety procedures, lax monitoring of operations in the computer control room and workers using crowbars to maneuver large containers of munitions.
He told of 20 workers exposed to poisonous sodium fluoride, although none was harmed. But another untrained worker accidently released scalding water on himself, causing first and second degree burns to his face and arms, Jones said.
He says he was fired after he refused to dismiss a government engineering report that had identified more than 150 "hazards" at the plant that could cause "imminent and catastrophic failures," if ignored.
EG&G is motivated by production and keeping the Army happy, he said. "They are there to please the customer and what the Army wants, it gets and they don't want to hear bad news."
He added that some of the major flaws at Tooele, such as the unproven ventilation system and deteriorating fireproof brick, have also plagued the Army's prototype incinerator at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific.
"My contention is that the (Tooele) plant cannot safely facilitate incineration as it is currently built and operating," Jones said. "We have a great potential of (a chemical agent) release outside of this plant," which could pose a deadly risk to the nearby communities.
But he said the problems can be fixed and the incinerator can operate safely. His recommendations: Ongoing independent safety inspections of the plant; placing the Army's chemical weapons destruction program under a different command to improve communications and better enforce safety measures; reviewing the incinerator's hazards and operating procedures; and sharing the Army's risk assessments of the plant with the public.
But the commission's reaction to Jones' story was split.
While some congratulated him for coming forward, others questioned his motives for going public with his complaints. "The regulatory agencies had to find out about your complaints through the news media. I find that interesting," said Dennis Downs, head of Utah's hazardous waste regulation, which holds the permits the Army must secure before the plant goes on line.
Commission member David Ostler noted that the plant is going through a "shakedown" period when problems are supposed to surface and be corrected before full-scale operation. "You see problems and you fix them," Ostler said. "Fireproof brick always deteriorates and needs replacing. I don't see that as the end of the world and the people of Tooele will head for the hills."
EG&G has said it has fixed many of problems mentioned in the government report Jones referred to and that he was dismissed because of differences in management style. But the Army and the contractor sat silent Wednesday. They have been through this before - once after a worker died during an evacuation drill and another time when an electrician complained to the state that the building's conduit could transport leaking agent throughout the plant.
Subsequent investigations, though recommending some operational changes, cleared the Army and its contractors and the project has forged ahead.
Tischbin doesn't expect the current probes to interfere or delay ongoing test runs and at the incinerator. "I would expect they would want to see what we are doing," she told the Deseret News. "But we are not ready to turn the plant on and begin operation. At this point we wouldn't expect to be."