While whistle-blowers and citizen groups attack the safety of a new chemical arms incinerator at Tooele Army Depot, top Pentagon officials insisted Tuesday it is safe.
That came as they also said the nearby Dugway Proving Ground is now a key to new germ and chemical defense testing - and said such work there will also be safe.Theodore M. Prociv, deputy assistant defense secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, told a House National Security subcommittee he is sure the arms destruction plant at Tooele is safe.
"It's not just an incinerator, it's a highly complex system" with extra filters and scrubbers built in to trap or destroy all nerve and mustard agent, he said amid questioning by Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah.
"We don't expect any (chemical agent) effluent out of those smokestacks at all," he said.
Hansen asked Prociv to respond to allegations by the plant's former safety inspector, Steve Jones - who was fired after he said he refused to certify the plant as safe - that it has hundreds of potentially fatal flaws. Citizen groups used his assertions in calls again last week to stop such incinerators.
Prociv said any real problems identified by Jones have been fixed and that other inspection agencies have said operation should be safe. The plant is expected to begin chemical arms destruction this spring.