By Amy Gorgueiro
The Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Tooele County has been declared safe after a liquid leak of a small amount of blister agent H was discovered in a storage area.
The leak, found on Tuesday, July 11, was identified after scheduled monitoring of the igloos the blister agent is stored in, said Jon Pettebone, a public affairs officer at the Deseret Chemical Depot.
Leaks are not uncommon during the summer months, said Chris Bittner, a toxicologist for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality from the division of solid and hazardous waste. He said leaks do not occur during the winter months when agent H stays in its solid form due to the cold temperatures.
The sulfur mustard that leaked was in a liquid form after thawing due to the extreme summer temperatures, Pettebone said.
Since January 1, the DCD has had 77 liquid and vapor leaks. The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, adjacent to the DCD, has had 13 leaks in that same time period.
Leaks are documented and reported on at monthly city advisory meetings held to address citizen concerns, said Susan Huff, a public affairs officer with the DCD.
Linda Likens, a Tooele resident, said the presence of the DCD in Tooele does not concern her. She has many friends who work at the facility and also live in Tooele with their families.
“If they’re not concerned, I’m not concerned,” she said.
Bittner said blister agents like agent H and nerve agents are stored at the facility in Tooele. Nerve agents cause twitching, difficulty in breathing or even death.
Agent H causes severe blistering and can cause blindness if it gets into the eyes, Pettebone said. If the agent is inhaled, it could be lethal.
Agent H was used by other countries during WWI, Pettebone said. Many soldiers came back from the war with respiratory problems due to contact with the chemical.
According to the TCADF, which disposes of the chemical munitions stored at the DCD, the facility is designed to dispose of 44.5 percent of the nation’s stockpile of chemical weapons. Similar disposal facilities are also found in Oregon, Alabama and Arkansas.
Pettebone said the DCD was built in 1942 to destroy chemical weapons and agent. It was the first full-scale facility in the United States.
Huff said the facility was originally home to 27 million pounds of chemical agents to be housed in 208 storage igloos. Over three million pounds have been destroyed since operations began in August 1996.
The DCD currently stores 6,196 tons of chemical agent mustard, Bittner said.
The clean-up process of a leak requires a minimum of 12 people. Workers must go into the storage facility to fix the leak by twos, Pettebone said. The workers have to take turns doing the cleanup while wearing protective rubber suits. Bittner said that bleach is typically used to clean up agent H leaks. The spill is chemically decontaminated and is typically sent to hazardous waste landfills where it remains indefinitely.
Mustard is scheduled to be last in its disposal at the TCADF because of its freezing point. Bittner said agent H’s freezing point poses the least amount of threat compared to the other chemical munitions at the facility.
Bittner said the disposal of agent H at the TCADF will not occur for at least another two years.
