Army assembling sampling facility

STOCKTON — Army technicians began assembling a temporary chemical sampling facility Thursday in the storage area of Deseret Chemical Depot in preparation for disposal operations.

The filtered structure will collect samples of the GA nerve agent and lewisite blister agent for analysis required for environmental permit compliance.

The technicians are members of the 20th Support Command Chemical Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High Yield Explosives team.

The depot, a systems contractor and state regulatory officials will monitor operations which are projected to take four to five weeks.

The Army's chemical materials agency is evaluating the proposed addition of a small liquid incinerator system to thermally destroy smaller stockpiles of the chemical agents. The incinerator and the new sampling facility would be installed within the boundary of the depot's storage area.

These disposal operations will not interfere with the ongoing mustard disposal at the nearby Tooele Chemical Agency Disposal Facility.

— Cimaron Neugebauer