Some disturbing news came out of Washington late last week concerning the chemical weapons demilitarization program now going on out in Tooele, Utah. A plant employee who has worked at the Tooele disposal facility for eight years charged that managers at the plant were urged to cut corners a few months back so that the incineration of GB nerve agent could be completed in time before the start of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics.
The report brings concerns locally, especially since the Tooele incinerator is similar to the disposal facility in Calhoun County, the one that is set to begin testing nerve agent in September.
Moreover, this is not the first time an employee has come forward with complaints about safety issues at the Tooele incinerator, which was forced to shut down for several months last summer because of an accidental release of trace amounts of GB nerve agent from its emissions stack.
Whether the charges are entirely true, they serve to illustrate a vital point in this process of weapons destruction: Safety first.
Yes, incineration is the only proven reliable method of disposal at this time, and, yes, the local incinerator has been upgraded from the Tooele model to take care of some of the more troubling safety issues.
However, that doesn’t mean the process is fail-safe, particularly when there is a human element involved, and particularly when that human element veers, for whatever reason, from standard operating procedure.
If those in charge of the local demilitarization facility take anything from Tooele, it should be the concept that safety must come first — before any deadlines imposed by international weapons treaty, before any goal of destroying X amount of rockets by a given date.
Once the burning begins, it should move ahead at as quickly as possible to eliminate the danger of the more than 2,000 pounds of the local chemical weapons stockpile. At no time, however, should the safety of the workers, or of the civilians living near the facility, be compromised.
