Two workers facing discipline for allegedly violating safety rules at the Army's chemical weapons incinerator in Tooele County have quit their jobs.
"They voluntarily resigned. They were going to be disciplined for not following procedures, so they elected to resign," said Tim Thomas, the Army's civilian project manager.It was his order that shut down the plant April 23, one day after the incident. The command was issued by Janice D. Wade, the Army's administrative contracting officer, but it was Thomas's call.
The Deseret News has acquired an April 30 letter from another employee protesting disciplinary action against the two workers. Written by a man who called himself "too concerned," the letter said the workers were blamed for following a routine that was "in effect" authorized by their superiors.
It says the two should not be disciplined and that higher-level employees are "more appropriate candidates for dismissal."
Higher-echelon employees "have much longer and more infamous records of slighting procedures in the interest of production," the letter-writer charges.
The letter-writer says that by disciplining the two workers, "gross injustice has been done." He concludes by saying he would sign his name except that "my wife objects to my identifying myself. She is concerned about our livelihood."
After the shutdown, planned maintenance projects began at the incinerator. An April 29 press release issued by Deseret Chemical Depot, where the plant is located, said only that it was closed for "a scheduled maintenance period."
The statement made no mention of Thomas's stop-work order. But he confirmed that his order did shut down operations. It will "remain in effect until there's good evidence that their employees understand the requirements," he said.
The plant should resume destroying nerve agent around the middle of June, Thomas said.
"There was an activity which was performed in the plant which I felt uncomfortable about. I have very high standards in making sure the workers are protected," Thomas told the Deseret News Wednesday.
Because of that standard, he issued the order, he said. It allows limited activities to continue, with a proper level of oversight.
According to a formal "Notice to Discontinue for Insufficient Quality" and its accompanying report, two workers in an area with nerve agent split up, violating standard operating procedures that require teams to remain together in case of an emergency. For the level of nerve agent present, they should have worn clothing that was more protective, the notice continues.
They did not receive permission to enter the toxic area, should have left when nerve gas concentrations met criteria for aborting their mission and did not complete a two-minute cycle of purging contam-inated air before leaving an airlock, the notice charges.
The violations were so dangerous that Thomas assigned the incident "a Severity Level One," the most serious rating.
The report says that at one time, an alarm registered that nerve agent in the area had reached a concentration measured at 512 timed-weighted average (TWA). A level of one TWA is the federal standard for workplace exposure, or the amount to which a worker can be exposed for 40 hours a week, throughout his career, without harm.
Thomas' report says alarms indicate the workers went from one airlock into another, then into the toxic maintenance area, the section of the plant where leaking munitions are unpacked.
John Jardine, an independent contractor for quality assurance, said, "We had an entry into the building which did not meet our requirements for entry procedures . . .. We felt the entry was enough evidence that we felt we better stop work to be safe."
Thomas said the plant's operator, EG&G Defense Materials Inc. of Wellesley, Mass., is undergoing a thorough review of its management and control system. EG&G officials are making sure "they are rigorous on how they control people," he said.
Employees must go through a new training program, he said. "Right now, we have intensified our oversight."
An independent group of EG&G's management staff will check plant operations, making sure they are carried out properly, Thomas added.
According to the April 29 press release, between the plant's startup in August 1996 and that date it had destroyed more than 500,000 pounds of deadly GB nerve agent. The material was contained in 253 "ton containers" and 11,592 rockets. The total was more than 1.8 percent of the chemical agent stored in Utah. The chemical weapons-destruction project is scheduled to run for more than six years.