Leak Halts Burning of Chemical Weapons

Destruction of the nation’s largest stockpile of chemical weapons was halted three days after it began when traces of nerve gas leaked in a sealed area of the incinerator, a plant official said. “There was never any danger to employees, the community or the environment,” spokesman Jon Pettebone said of the leak inside the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. The incinerator was built to destroy 14,000 tons of Army chemical agents stored at a remote western Utah desert site about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. About 30,000 M55 rockets are stored at Tooele, and slightly more than 200 had been destroyed before the shutdown.