Danger goes with a day's work at depot

TOOELE — The list of America's most dangerous jobs doesn't include the civilian Army workers who handle some of the most toxic stuff on earth at Deseret Chemical Depot, the Army's largest stockpile of nerve gas and mustard and blister agent.

But danger always is lurking for the Army's toxic materials handlers, who include Becky Webster, a 55-year-old grandmother in a rubber smock with a gas mask strapped to her hips.

It's safer than many jobs, Webster insists, and pays $17 an hour.

"You have to work so you can retire," she said.

A drop of nerve gas can kill, and Webster and other civilians lift, load and truck tons of it every day. These are the crew members who enter sealed ground bunkers to retrieve Cold War-era munitions.

They also find the "leakers," those munitions or canisters that have faulty seals and must be placed in steel casks.

"You go in with flashlights and just find the leaker," said Webster, matter-of-factly.

The crew delivers pallets of weapons to a nearby incinerator that in 1996 began destroying the depot's 13,616 tons of chemical warfare agents — weapons so terrible the U.S. military has never used them.

Occasional spills and vapor leaks go with the territory at the chemical depot, surrounded by barbed wire fences in remote Rush Valley, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Intruders risk being shot on sight. Warning signs don't mince words.

The incinerator was shut down last summer after 22 milligrams — about one drop — of GB nerve agent escaped the main emissions stack. The plant reopened after the private operator, EG&G Defense Materials, installed a safety valve on the emissions system.

Army officials say the risks can be deadlier in storage yards and ground bunkers, where errant vapors or spills can surprise weapons handlers, who carry injections of antidote with them.

Highly volatile nerve agent can paralyze the lungs, suffocating its victims. Liquid mustard and blister agent work on contact and dissolve tissue.

Dennis Mair, a toxic materials supervisor, said a spill of 70 gallons of mustard agent seven years ago from a leaky container was his closest brush with disaster. It was mopped up.

"We have problems with certain munitions," says Mair, 39, who shrugs off the dangers. It pays him $22 an hour.