Colorado public health officials are so concerned about the volatility of chemical weapons stored near Pueblo they have asked a federal judge to immediately order the Department of Defense to do a better job of monitoring the aging munitions.
That’s the upshot of a preliminary injunction request the Colorado Department of Public Health filed last week, the latest salvo in a longstanding battle to rid the state of the dangerous cache, which includes mustard agent, a known carcinogen.
We’re glad to see the state putting the screws to the Army in an effort to protect area residents and depot workers until the weapons can be safely destroyed. We hope the petition is found to be legally sufficient and the order is issued.
Pueblo-area residents have been dealing with this looming threat for far too long. And though there appears, finally, to be movement toward ridding the region of the weapons, improving monitoring in the meantime is a prudent move.
The state’s history with the Pueblo Chemical Weapons Depot began with its opening in 1942. The facility was intended to store and dispose of chemical and conventional munitions. More than 780,000 mortar and artillery projectiles containing 2,611 tons of mustard agent have been warehoused there since the 1950s.
Mustard agent, a liquid that looks like molasses, can cause skin blisters, respiratory difficulties and even death. The shells containing mustard agent are deteriorating and, without warning, are burping poison into the air. Two reported leaks in the last year, though described as minor, have raised concerns.
The health department says people who work at the depot and live near it could suffer “irreparable harm” from chemical exposure before the state’s lawsuit, filed earlier this year, runs its course.
“These waste chemical munitions have leaked mustard agent in the past; such leaks are unpredictable and uncontrollable,” according to the lawsuit. “Since the proper procedures are not in place to monitor the releases, there is no way to know the composition, rate or magnitude of exposure to mustard agent and other hazardous waste constituents to the employees and the public.”
It is a dangerous situation, and the federal government must engage in more frequent monitoring of the weapons and detect leaks at lower levels until the weapons are gone.
As it stands, the storage “igloos” are monitored for leaks on a quarterly basis. Clearly, that’s not enough. The state wants them monitored on a weekly basis. When workers are present, the state wants the units monitored in what would be close to a real-time basis in an effort to make the situation safer.
Relief from this decades-long problem may be coming soon. The Department of Defense’s 2010 budget, released in May, included enough money to complete the Pueblo weapons destruction project by 2017.
The inclusion of adequate funding for the project, which will involve destroying weapons in an on-site facility, comes after years of delay and lack of money.
The finish line for the Pueblo weapons saga is finally in sight. The federal government must take the appropriate precautions to ensure the final steps are safe and timely ones.
