Army mum on appropriation for Dugway

It's another secret for Dugway Proving Ground.

The Army is declining comment about how much of President Bush's proposed $5.9 billion increase to fight bioterrorism might go to the Utah base, where most defenses against germ, chemical and radiological warfare have been tested through the years.

The Army also won't say how or if research and testing at the Rhode Island-size base in the desert has changed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent letters that spread anthrax.

"We hope some of the budget pie to combat that (bioterrorism) will come their way . . . . But it's too soon to tell," said Nancy Ray, spokeswoman for the Army. "We appreciate the vital role Dugway has played."

That is all the Army would say in response to Deseret News inquiries about how Bush's budget requests might affect Dugway and how work there may have changed. The base itself referred all inquiries to Army headquarters in the Pentagon.

Such secrecy about Dugway isn't new to Utahns. It was where the Cold War was sometimes hot with tests of dangerous agents that sometimes floated off base. Utahns often didn't find out details about them until years later, except when accidents occurred — such as when 6,000 sheep off base were killed by nerve gas in 1968.

Bush's new budget includes a variety of proposals that could beef up work at Dugway.

For example, it includes $420 million for the Defense Department to "study the technology and tactics of bioterrorists" and to "devise countermeasures to the use of biological agents as weapons."

It includes another $392 million for federal research to "strengthen the ability to detect and react quickly" to the presence of germ weapons, such as anthrax.

Another $2.4 billion is proposed for general research and development relating to bioterrorism.

Dugway may be ideal for at least some of that extra work, since the Army for decades has used the remote location for labs and open-air trials to test defenses against chemical, biological and radiological weapons including detection methods, decontamination, protective clothing and medicine.

For example, Freedom of Information requests by the Deseret News have shown that Dugway and nearby areas were the site of 1,174 series of open-air chemical arms defense tests during the the Cold War.

That included at least 494,700 pounds of nerve agent. A pinhead-size drop of nerve agent VX may cause death. In 1968, 6,000 sheep in nearby Skull Valley died after an accident allowed VX to float off the base. Some ranchers also blame continuing health problems on that incident.

Dugway also conducted at least 328 series of open-air tests of germ weapons during the Cold War. Some agents used cause anthrax, botulism, the plague, tularemia and Q fever.

The Army said it ceased open-air tests of such dangerous agents in 1969, although Dugway continues lab work with them and has continued open-air trials with less dangerous simulant agents that it says pose no threat of illness.

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