Utah

Nerve Gas Spill in Utah Stopped
Associated Press, 12/14/98

One hundred forty gallons of the deadly nerve agent sarin spilled at the Army's high-tech chemical weapons incinerator and was confined to a containment area designed for such an accident. None of the agent escaped into the atmosphere and there were no injuries from the spill Sunday afternoon at the Tooele Chemical Disposal Facility, auhtorities said. Officials said Monday they were cleaning up the spill, which happened as the liquid was being poured into the incineration chamber. It wound up in a containment sump designed for such a spill. “All safety systems worked as designed,'' said Tooele spokesman Jon Pettebone. Inspectors suspect the spill was caused by a failure of a filter designed to screen out small particles from the furnace, according to a Tooele news release. The spill was the largest reported to date at the $600 million facility, designed to destroy the nation's chemical weapons stockpile.