The Deseret Chemical Depot () was a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

chemical weapon A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...

storage area located in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, 60 miles (100 km) southwest of

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

. It is related to the

Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF, also called Tooele Chemical Demilitarization Facility) or TOCDF, is a U.S. Army facility located at Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele County, Utah that was used for dismantling chemical weapons. ...

History

The area was used to store chemical weapons between 1942 and 2012 with weapons destruction beginning in August 1996 at the Depot which held, at that time, 45% of the total U.S. stockpile. After initial demilitarization operations concerning the

Weteye bomb The Weteye bomb was a U.S. chemical weapon designed for the U.S. Navy and meant to deliver the nerve agent sarin. The Weteye held of liquid sarin and was officially known as the Mk 116 (Mark 116). Stockpiles of Weteyes were transferred to Utah ...

concluded a total of 888 of those bombs were left in storage at Rocky Mountain Arsenal.Staff.
Minute Amount of Nerve Gas Is Found in Bomb Container
, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', August 26, 1981, accessed December 18, 2008.Bauman, Joe.
Final goodbye for the 'Weteye'
, ''

Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is the oldest continuously operating publication in the American west. Its multi-platform products feature journalism and commentary across the fields of politics, culture, family life, faith, sports, and entertainment. Th ...

'' (

), December 26, 2001, accessed December 18, 2008. After rounds of protests from residents of Utah, the state's governor, and legal action the munitions were transferred to what was then known as

Tooele Army Depot Tooele Army Depot (TEAD) is a United States Army Joint Munitions Command post in Tooele County, Utah. It serves as a storage site for war reserve and training ammunition. The depot stores, issues, receives, renovates, modifies, maintains and demi ...

South Area. The first transfer of Weteyes took place in August 1981 and the moves continued for three weeks. After these transfers the South Area became known as Deseret Chemical Depot.

Disposal operations

, 7,593 tons (6,888

metric ton The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton (United States c ...

s) of chemical weapons have been destroyed using incineration. All

sarin Sarin (NATO designation GB G-series, "B"">Nerve_agent#G-series.html" ;"title="hort for Nerve agent#G-series">G-series, "B" is an extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound.VX by June 2005. In 2006, the facility was changed-over to handle destruction of

mustard gas Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents. The name ''mustard gas'' is technically incorrect: the substance, when dispersed, is often not actually a gas, b ...

in ton-sized containers. By March 15, 2009, 3,216 ton containers and 54,453 projectiles of mustard gas had been destroyed (51.5% of Deseret's mustard agent stockpile).
Deseret Chemical Depot – Monthly Update
, May 15, 2008, U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, accessed December 18, 2008. The last explosively configured mustard gas munition was reported destroyed in May 2010. All tabun (GA) was destroyed by November 10, 2011. Disposal of land mines containing mustard gas as well as a small stockpile of

Lewisite Lewisite (L) (A-243) is an organoarsenic compound. It was once manufactured in the U.S., Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union for use as a Chemical warfare, chemical weapon, acting as a vesicant (blister agent) and lung irritant. Although the substa ...

has not been completed. All disposal operations concluded January 21, 2012.

Unknown intruder

At 9:24 AM UTC-07, September 5, 2002, officials at the depot triggered the Terrorist Alert Warning System in response to an unidentified intruder being spotted just inside the 7-foot barbed wire fencing at Cemetery Ridge, a mile north of the incinerator It was the first time that the alarm, which alerts employees to possible terror threats, had been sounded since new security measures were instituted after

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

. As soon as the alert was sounded, area schools were notified of a possible terror threat. Due to the proximity of the date of the intrusion to the September 11th attacks the year before, security was even higher than normal, and it was initially reported to

KSL-TV KSL-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Bonneville International, the for-profit broadcasting arm of the Church of Jesus Chr ...

that units from the 1st Battalion, 145th Field Artillery Regiment, a part of the

Utah National Guard The Utah National Guard consists of the: * Utah Army National Guard **19th Special Forces Group (Airborne) **65th Field Artillery Brigade **85th WMD CST **97th Troop Command **115th Engineer Group (CBT) **204th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade **211th ...

, had the intruder surrounded. Army officials later stated that the black-clad trespasser, sighted by four different soldiers during two different patrols, immediately ran off towards Ophir Creek, escaping capture, according to the depot Commander, Col. Peter C. Cooper. Despite the immediate setting up of roadblocks and a combined search by Army units and helicopters, no trace of the intruder was found. The search was suspended at approximately 8 PM that evening. When asked why the intruder could have escaped capture, Wade Mathews of the

Tooele County Tooele County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 58,218. Its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year. Tooele County ...

Emergency Management Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...

noted, "There's a lot of foliage out there." Ophir Creek is lined with

willows Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist s ...

, he said. Depot spokeswoman Alaine Southworth states it was impossible to know if the "intruder" actually was someone from the depot who was in the wrong area, but everyone on the depot was accounted for after the warning. Additionally, she noted that they were not sure how the intruder gained access to the perimeter, as the fence had not been cut, and no vehicle had been found to aid the intruder in their escape. Col. Cooper emphasized that the intruder was not in the area where chemical weapons were stored, but "unsettling questions remain" about his intentions, as there was no evidence of anything being stolen or that terrorism was in fact involved.

Base Closure

During the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), Deseret Chemical Depot was recommended for closure if it was determined that it could not be used in the future for the demilitarization of conventional weapons. In such a case, supplies contained at the depot would be transferred to nearby Tooele Army Depot. Deseret Chemical Depot officially closed July 11, 2013; however, it is unclear whether or not the hundreds of government employees and contractors employed at the time have transferred to other bases.

History

Disposal operations

Unknown intruder

Base Closure

See also

References

Further reading