A lightning bolt knocked out primary power to five monitoring stations surrounding the Army's chemical weapons incinerator in Tooele County Thursday night, but backup power immediately switched on.
Workers were able to continue destroying deadly nerve agent, and on Sunday they reached the milestone of eliminating the last of the MC-1 bombs in the stockpile.The lightning strike destroyed or damaged nine power poles, which crews were expected to have replaced and functioning on Monday, said John Pettebone, spokesman for Deseret Chemical Depot, which houses both the incinerator and the stockpile the facility is destroying.
The stations monitor weather instruments and chemical agent detectors. They were not compromised by the strike, Pettebone said.
Neither did the incident interfere with the $600 million incinerator's work. In fact, on Sunday the plant completed the destruction of MC-1 bombs, 750-pound bombs that are filled with the nerve gas called GB or sarin. All 4,463 of the bombs once held in the stockpile have been destroyed.
"Over the years, the MC-1 bomb has been one of the most difficult to maintain in storage," said Col. Joseph Huber, the depot's commander. "Completion of this campaign represents a significant decease in risk to our Rush Valley neighbors."
"It was the first chemical munition of any single type to be eliminated from the stockpile, a major milestone," said Pettebone.
Tim Thomas, the civilian who is project manager for chemical demilitarization, said the disposal of the chemical stockpile is in the best interest of Utah's citizens and "the destruction of the MC-1 bomb puts us closer to this goal."
Ironically, a leaking MC-1 bomb was discovered Thursday. It was destroyed on Saturday. Another leaker of the same type turned up on Saturday in another on-site container. It was destroyed on Sunday, shortly before the MC-1 campaign ended.
Now that MC-1 bombs are history at the depot, the incinerator can turn to other munitions.
Managers have received approval from the state to resume destroying ton-containers of sarin and expect they will soon begin processing 105 mm projectiles of the nerve agent. Of the projectiles, the stockpile holds nearly 880,000 of the type not equipped with explosives and 120,000 that are tipped with explosives. Both types are filed with sarin.