Memos slam Army incinerator
Writer, an apparent mole, says Tooele facility is dangerous
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STOCKTON, Tooele County -- In a string of harshly worded memos, a mole inside the Army's chemical weapons incinerator says the incineration technology doesn't work properly.

Environmentalists say the memos show the incinerator is dangerous. But plant officials, the Army and the chief state regulator insist the $1 billion facility is doing a good job in destroying the country's largest stockpile of toxic nerve and blister agent."We agree that the incidents that were brought out in all of that documentation occurred, but we already knew about those," said Dennis R. Downs, director of the Utah Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste.

Asked if the level of detail in the memos and documents indicates a mole supplied the information, Jack Maddox, deputy general manager for risk manager for plant operator EG&G Defense Materials, replied, "The supposition is yes, we have somebody out there."

The material was released to the Deseret News and KSL-TV by the Chemical Weapons Working Group, based in Berea, Ky. The handwritten memos, dated from Aug. 10, 1999, to Jan. 10, are addressed to the group's Craig Williams.

The environmentalists attributed them to Steve Jones, the plant's safety and security manager. Jones was fired from that job in 1994 and was reinstated last year by court order. In between, he worked closely with the environmentalists who released the memos. But in a meeting Tuesday with reporters from the Deseret News and KSL-TV, Jones denied writing them or giving the environmentalists any information since he went back to work.

In fact, Jones, plant managers and Col. Bruce E. Pate, commander of Deseret Chemical Depot (where the plant is located), defended the incinerator as safe. They disputed the harsh spin that the memos put on plant safety.

The $1 billion incinerator has been working since 1986 to burn up an adjacent chemical weapons stockpile, originally 13,616 tons of mustard agent and GB and VX nerve agent. GB and VX are chemicals so deadly that one drop on the skin can kill a person.

By February, the plant had destroyed 28 percent. Citing the danger posed by leaking munitions, plant officials hope to destroy the rest by the end of 2004.

The pressure to finish soon has pushed plant officials into patching up rickety systems, the memos claim. Downs responded that the problems are "just part of any kind of manufacturing process or industrial process."

"We don't think that has translated into an increased risk to the public," Downs said.