Casual Fridays

I'm going to mix business with pleasure today. If you haven't heard by now, the new Google maps service has satellite pictures of mixed quality, but you can pick out buildings and large features quite easily. Many people are using this capability to find out all kinds of neat things (like what Area 51 looks like). I'm going to use it to talk about some Chemical Corps history (groans from the audience).

On March 13, 1968, an Air Force F-4 aircraft released 320 gallons of VX nerve agent from two TMU-28 spray tanks on a target area within Dugway Proving Ground. At least 80 percent of the two tanks emptied as the plane traveled over the target. Five seconds after passing over the target, the plane released its tanks and returned to base. On March 15, ranchers in nearby Skull Valley (27 miles away) reported that they had more than 4300 sick sheep. Because it was the Cold War period, the Army wasn't talking to the public, but told local politicians and the Utahn congressional delegation about their testing between March 13 and March 15. The Utahn governor, not wanting to wait for test results, immediately accused the Army of irresponsible testing and demanded the Army pay the ranchers for their loss of uninsured sheep.

There wasn't much scientific evidence connecting the sheep illnesses to VX poisoning. The Army had accounted for about 18 percent of the agent that fell outside of the target area, but within Dugway's borders. That meant that about 5 pounds gallons, or 2 percent of the tanks' contents, was not accounted for. So what the ranchers (and the governor) were claiming is that the Army's aerial spray test was responsible for releasing 5 pounds of VX agent (which was an aerosolized liquid, not a gas) that traveled nearly 30 miles over a mountain range to land amongst several sheep herds and affect around 4000 sheep, but no other animals or humans.

Here's some satellite photography to make this a visual for you readers. Here's the exact test site in Dugway Proving Ground where the airplane released its contents (source - the Army's afteraction report of April 1968). That's Camelback Mountain to the south. Note the circular range fans - commonly used by many countries for aerial weapons testing.

Here's where the sheep herds were (approximately), in Skull Valley. Note the very imposing Cedar Mountains to the west side of this valley. On the other side of those mountains is the eastern border of Dugway Proving Ground. If you scroll with your mouse to the left twice, you should bump into the range fans. If we zoom out, you can see Camelback Mountains in the bottom left corner, and to the southwest, south, and southeast of that green patch of satellite photo on the right is where the sheep herds were.

Now, if you make a little oval about a half-inch long over the Camelback Mountains, that's where the test track was. So for this allegation to be true, 80 percent of the agent is there, 18 percent is between the Camelback and Cedar Mountains, and 2 percent made it OVER the mountains and into the valley (see Download dugway.ppt for details). Any of you with any concept of atmospheric physics or dispersion modeling (that's most of us, right?) will instantly see this as ridiculous. Others might at least become skeptical, and more convinced that the alternative explanation, that ranchers a few miles north in the Valley had sprayed their alfalfa fields with an illegal pesticide (this was prior to the EPA) and made the sheep sick, is much more plausible.

Oh BTW, the Army denied culpability but paid twice the market rate for 4377 sheep that were ill enough not to be able to stand and another 1877 "disabled" sheep - allegedly exposed but not ill. These 6254 sheep were then killed by ranchers' rifles - not nerve agent - and promptly buried. It was an election year, and the Army leadership in DC just wanted the problem to go away. But don't expect the media to understand or explain this story correctly, even today. And don't expect many Chemical Corps soldiers to know this story either (shockingly).

More fun for chemos - Edgewood Arsenal map (I think the Edgewood Chemical Activity and its mustard ton containers can be seen in the middle right side of the screen) and Fort Leonard Wood map (the upside-down U at the top, center, is the Maneuver Support Center - the Schoolhouse for the Chemical Corps, Engineers and Military Police).

Comments

[John Steven]

I've visted that exact test site/circular range, and was told the sheep story during my trip to Dugway as well. All the remaining poles and wires at the abandoned location are old and rusted, but it was a bit weird to stand at 'ground zero' and think of all the CW/BW that must have been dispersed right there... still not as spooky as crawling around *inside* the crumbling VX plant at Newport wearing protective gear (just in case) though.

[J.]

No kidding! I bet you have some very interesting stories there. I have never been to Dugway - may get the opportunity later this year or next year. Looking forward to it. I think they tore down that Newport building last year, didn't they?

[Bolivar]

Ah, so you think pesticide spray killed the sheep.

How about this - rather than the Army's estimate of 2% of the VX falling outside Dugway, how about their estimate being horribly wrong? Maybe 98% fell outside Dugway?

Your ppt map is a very good representation of the area.

I was there. I picked up and buried a good number of the dead sheep. I've read The Stone Report. Winds strong enough to blow over a trailer minutes after the test. Storms to the north and south minutes after the test. Without a doubt, the Army test cloud moved off the grid, off Dugway, into Skull Valley, across Johnson Pass, and into Rush Valley where sheep were sickened. This is something like 60 miles total. 2% of the test volume did not do this.

At the time I proposed that a PR story be released blaming the deaths on a range war between the sheep herders and cattlemen. No one seemed to think this would fly, so the Army has essentially stonewalled for 35 years.

[NVH]

J.-So whose version is correct? I just finished Tucker's chapter on it, and HIS seems a bit more ACCURATE than yours. Now coming from where he is, liberal arms control guy, to where you are from, Army Chem School faithful supporter, and you're on a blog and he wrote book, thereby implying more detail should be located in his book, I get it. But what I'm getting from you is you think the ranchers who said they hadn't sprayed yet, were "warring" with one another and pesticides for their crops were used possibly "inadvertantly" to kill the sheep? Is that right? According to Tucker there was still a couple Liquid gallons of VX outside the range that got caught up in the maelstrom of weather. Liquid VX is Highly persistent right, and it wasn't EXACTLY VX, but a chem derivative, so...I don't know, it's not like winning the lottery, but the M&S guys can make it look probable both ways...

[J.]

Tucker is wrong on the Dugway incident and on the chemical demilitarization program. He lets his liberal bias creep into his academic discussion. If you want a book reference, see Mauroni, "America's Struggle with Chemical-Biological Warfare," chapter 2, for a full discussion of said topic.

Did you view the ppt in the post? Do the math. About 98 percent of the agent is accounted for on the reservation, 80 percent of which was on a target grid. Figure out how many acres of land that remaining two percent of agent would have landed, and tell me that's an incapacitating dose for sheep. It's not remotely probable. Dugway had routinely done hundreds of simulant and agent testing since before 1945 - twenty plus years of experience, never an incident.

If there were heavy winds - and the Stone Report does show all the wind data at the test site, at least - the result would be increased dispersion of the aerosol over several square miles, not the deposition of a lethal mass of agent on the sheep. Not enough agent, too great of a distance, and (btw) no other animal/human indications of depressed acetylcholinesterase levels in the area. The science ought to trump the hype here.

Before the EPA was around, ranchers could use whatever they wanted on their crops. So here we have a few thousand uninsured sheep who get sick - but do not die - of ingesting (not skin contact) an organophosphate (not proven to be VX). Ranchers panic. It's an election year (1968), and the governor and the congressional delegation leak to the press that the Army's Cold War testing is the culprit (before any investigation is concluded). Press goes wild (military story - scandle/coverup).

Army does tests, meanwhile one-star gets flown in from Wash DC to tell the press "unless we prove otherwise, it does look like we're culpable." He returns to DC to tell Army leadership the story, and the generals decide to pay off the ranchers and make the problem go away without admitting any guilt. Problem is, the press and the Congress can't let that happen, it's too good of an election-year story.

So the ranchers shoot the sheep and start burying them, counting on the governor to put the screws to the Army for the money. Occam's razor. Short of a CSI team, that's my story.

[NVH]

Well, let me just call up William Peterson on my cellie and see what he has to say about it? Look, I know it's highly improbable with regards to the amount of agent left spread out over such a large area. And no chance you coud calculate up to an incapacitating dose, even for sheep w/o butyrylcholinesterase (damn, I've been reading way too much). I guess I gotta look at Mauroni's other book, now. Dammit, where can I get it used?