Utah incinerator worker exposed to nerve agent

This story was published Fri, Jul 19, 2002

By Mary Hopkin
Herald Valley bureau

TOOELE, Utah -- An incinerator plant worker at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Utah, was exposed to nerve agent Monday while performing maintenance duties.

It was the first such exposure to a worker since the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility started burning chemical stockpile agents in August 1996.

The Tooele facility is similar to the incinerator at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, which is to begin test burns next week with incineration scheduled to begin next spring.

Chuck Sprague, a public affairs officer in Tooele, said two plant workers there were performing routine maintenance at about 8:23 a.m. Monday on an agent purge line in the plant's liquid incinerator room when the room's air monitor system alarm sounded.

The workers, who were dressed in coveralls with charcoal respirators, immediately put on protective masks and moved into a secondary room to be decontaminated.

The workers were then taken to the facility's clinic, where additional decontamination and blood tests were performed, Sprague said.

The blood tests revealed one worker was exposed to nerve agent.

Sprague said the worker had pinpoint-size pupils, one symptom of nerve agent exposure.

He was released Monday after observation and has reported back to work, although he is not allowed inside areas where chemicals are present until his blood enzyme levels return to normal.

"He is fine," Sprague said. "In fact, the night he was released, he went to his son's baseball game."

The Tooele facility completed incinerating all of its 6,000 tons of GB nerve agent March 15. Workers are in the process of adapting the plant's equipment to destroy a stockpile of VX nerve agent.

 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.