Dugway has all its anthrax

WASHINGTON — While the government is unsure where terrorists could obtain anthrax, it says it knows one place the lethal bacteria did NOT come from: Utah's Dugway Proving Ground.

"We have no anthrax missing," Dugway spokeswoman Paula Nicholson said.

The Rhode Island-size base in the West Desert is where the Army tests detection equipment and defenses against biological and chemical weapons. Dugway Laboratories are among the few in America that work regularly with anthrax.

Anytime such lethal agents are discovered missing or stolen, it must be reported — but Nicholson said nothing is missing.

Nicholson said, however, that the recent anthrax scares have had an effect on Dugway: It is bringing in additional soldiers to beef up security.

"Under direction of the Army, we are becoming even more vigilant in controlling the test area," or zones beyond the base's residential area, she said.

She said the additional security forces were to arrive Wednesday.

She added the base is also tightly restricting vehicle travel to ensure that only authorized personnel enter the test area.

The Army has said that work with disease-causing germs at Dugway is now limited to the base's laboratories and open-air tests no longer are conducted. Open-air tests are supposed to use safer germs that simulate the characteristics of more deadly pathogens.

Documents obtained by the Deseret News in recent years showed that Dugway conducted at least 328 open-air germ warfare tests during the Cold War.

Agents used were among some of the most deadly known to man, including anthrax, the plague, brucellosis, tularemia, botulism, Q fever and parrot fever.

In other related tests, Dugway scientists dropped toxic cadmium sulfide, an easy-to-trace chemical, throughout the nation to see how germ weapons might spread in the winds if released by an enemy.

Besides the germ testing at Dugway, the base also conducted during the Cold War at least 1,174 open-air tests of chemical arms and 74 tests of "radiological" weapons (smaller munitions designed to spread radioactive dust and materials to contaminate battlefields).

An accident with one of those tests in 1968 killed 6,000 sheep downwind in Skull Valley. Some residents have questioned whether their families have suffered long-term poor health because of that accident or other testing.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com