The U.S. Army inspector general found that officials at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky for two years impaired monitoring of air quality in chemical weapons storage units, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 9, 2008).
The IG report, which covers a period from September 2003 through August 2005, confirms some allegations by a former depot employee who argued that the installation had improperly moved chemical-saturated pads designed to make leaking VX agent vapor in the units easier to detect.
The relocation within the storage igloos was a break with protocol and meant that “an accurate measurement of any VX agent vapor release would not have been possible,” the document states. The pads were moved back to their original location in 2005.
The report dismisses former Blue Grass monitor Donald Van Winkle's claim that the practice endangered depot staffers and made it possible for VX agent to escape to the outside environment.
“At Blue Grass, the Army was flying blind in protecting its chemical weapons stockpile,” said Paula Dinerstein, an attorney with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility who represented Van Winkle in a federal whistle-blower lawsuit. Dinerstein's organization obtained the Army report through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Although the report is unsettling, it is probably correct in playing down the potential danger posed by the monitoring breach, said Craig Williams, head of the watchdog Chemical Weapons Working Group. VX agent is most dangerous at high temperatures, when it disperses through the air more easily, he noted.
“You can be negligent in your execution of the monitoring as directed and still not have an incident. That’s possible here. It’s probable, really,” he said.
“We have received a copy of the inspector general’s report and will go over it carefully to see if there’s anything additional we can do to provide enhanced safety for the community and its citizens,” depot spokesman Richard Sloan said. (Jeffrey McMurray, Associated Press/Herald-Dispatch, July 20).