Nerve Agent Spills at Indiana Facility

[Blue Diadem]

By Associated Press

June 12, 2005, 6:37 AM EDT


NEWPORT, Ind. -- About 30 gallons of a liquid containing a deadly Cold War-era nerve agent spilled at an Indiana chemical weapons depot, but it was safely contained in a sealed area and no one was injured, the Army said Saturday.

The spill occurred Friday night at the Newport Chemical Agent Destruction Facility, where more than 250,000 gallons of the agent VX are stored. VX is a liquid with the consistency of mineral oil that can kill a healthy adult with a single pinpoint droplet.

The spill happened during a process to destroy the nerve agent by converting it into a caustic chemical called hydrolysate. The facility has destroyed nearly 2,900 gallons of VX since the process started a month ago, the Army said. The neutralization process is expected to take more than two years.

Workers would try to determine what caused the valve to leak Friday night and how to fix it, said Army spokeswoman Terry Arthur.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-nerve-agent,0,6388539.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines
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Another article here:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050612/NEWS01/506120405/1006/NEWS01

VX mixture spills at Newport facility
Liquid containing nerve agent was safely contained in a sealed area, the Army says.


snip:The liquid drained into a pit in the sealed concrete floor of the reactor area, named the Toxic Cubicle, the Army said. It then went into a tank designed to hold spent decontamination liquid.

Workers wearing protective equipment were to enter the Toxic Cubicle on Saturday as part of cleanup operations, the Army said.

VX is so deadly that just one drop is enough to kill a person.

The Toxic Cubicle was designed to prevent liquid or vapors from escaping to other parts of the facility or into the atmosphere. The area contains two reactors, each with a capacity of 1,000 gallons.

[bullimiami]

1. Who has the WMDs? Bush does. He is the most dangerous man with

the most dangerous weapons on the planet.

and he is insane.

[BiggJawn]

2. This is one of the "Bases" slated for closing.

After they finally destroy all the VX there.

OK, so without all that poison there, why keep the base? Maybe they can raise "pork" on the site?

I live about 60 miles downwind of there. Nice to know the Indiana SEMA was on top of notifying the poplace...Oh, I forgot. We don't HAVE a State EMA anymore. Our Bitch Mitch created the Indiana Dept. of Homeland Security to take over for that. Guess since it was an internal fuck-up and not a Al-Ka-Seltzah attack, we didn't Need to Know....

[sattahipdeep]

3. We didn't Need to Know....Wow

VX is a liquid with the consistency of mineral oil that can kill a
healthy adult with a single pinpoint droplet. :wow:

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1047744&tw=wn_wire_story

[salin]

4. The Blade, Mitch

grrrrrrr. I missed the move that you refer to - what the....

Btw, my geography is a bit off the further north I go in the state - where is NewPort?

[halobeam]

5. How many pinpoints are in 30 gallons?

OMG.......:wtf:

[thecrow]

7. Wait...

Don't forget about the 250,000 other gallons at that base.

Hmmmm and how many thousands of LITERS did he "proclaim" Saddam had?

Oh... nevermind that.

I feel much safer now.

[Massacure]

9. 50,000 tons.

We found six shells filled with it buried in the middle of the dessert. How much do you thing those six shells had? Not 50,000 tons, I can tell you that much.

Lets say that each shell at one pound in it. That means we spent $200 billion dollars and 1,700 U.S. soldiers to find 0.000006% of the chemical weapons named in the report. At this rate, it would take 333,333 years and 283,332,200 soldiers and $33.333 quadrillion dollars to find those 50,000 tons, assuming they were there.

[Blue Diadem]

6. Our newspaper had a little 2" x 2" mention of the spill so I had

to do some on line searching to find out more. IMO, with something as deadly as this, area residents should be notified immediately whenever there is an accident even if it enters a containment area.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. They wouldn't have told you until after the event was over....

...just like they handled this event.

And if was a relatively small escape with just a few dead, they could have blamed it on a tanker explosion.

Our tax dollars at work, folks.