Sarin Gas leak at Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot

RSOE

Army officials confirmed Friday that sarin nerve agent is leaking from a container at the Blue Grass Army Depot. A mobile laboratory conducting a routine check within one of the chemical agent storage igloos tested positive for the nerve agent GB (sarin).

I know what many of you think of Wiki, but it has a nice summary about Sarin.

Wiki, Sarin

Production and stockpiling of sarin was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.
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Sarin has a relatively short shelf life, and will degrade after a period of several weeks to several months. The shelf life may be greatly shortened by impurities in precursor materials. According to the CIA,[2] in 1989 the Iraqi Government destroyed 40 or more tons of sarin that had decomposed, and that some Iraqi sarin had a shelf life of only a few weeks, owing mostly to impure precursors.

Like other nerve agents, sarin can be chemically deactivated with a strong alkali. Sodium hydroxide can be used in a hydrolysis reaction to destroy sarin, converting it to effectively harmless sodium salts.[3]

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Initial symptoms following exposure to sarin are a runny nose, tightness in the chest and constriction of the pupils. Soon after, the victim has difficulty breathing and experiences nausea and drooling. As the victim continues to lose control of bodily functions, the victim vomits, defecates and urinates. This phase is followed by twitching and jerking. Ultimately, the victim becomes comatose and suffocates in a series of convulsive spasms

Here is a link to what the CDC has to say about sarin CDC

Here is a link to another news story on the event Kentucky Herald-Leader

Here is a link to the full event description in case anyone missed it.

Event Description

Good catch! It'll be interesting to see whether the MSM picks up this story or not.

They seem to be confident that this will not hurt anyone in the area.

My question, however, is why do we have it?

From my understanding, it has a surprisingly short shelf life. It is easily deactivated with an alkali, which turns it into some sort of harmless salt. It is illegal to make and stockpile it. With as nasty as this stuff is, and the fact that this same bunker had a leak last August, why are we still storing Sarin Gas?

Here is some info on Blue Grass Army Depot

BGAD's mission is to provide munitions, chemical defense equipment and special operations support to the Department of Defense.

Here is a pic of the bunkers they use.

Double post (damn these 404s...)

[edit on 12-7-2008 by SystemiK]

Here is a link to some information about the sarin gas leak last year.

ArmyTimes

From what I have been reading, that, was one of the largest chemical weapon oop's we have had.

After that, I am surprised it was allowed to happen again. Same exact igloo too.

Im curious if there were any reports of illness in the area last August. Now too for that matter.

This should not be allowed. Why dont they go ahead and neutralize this stuff. Surely they are not planning on useing this stuff

I am one of the inspector's.....noone...I repeat...NO ONE has ever been hurt or Harmed in anyway shape or form...



The GB, VX, and H Chemicals are suppose to be Destroyed by the year 2017. The main reason it is not already gone is a certain Group didn't like the idea of "Burning" the Gases as a disposal method....so the Army had to come up with a new way to get rid of the Chemicals.



Again...this stuff is watched so close...that at no time is the public in danger.....


it is under High Security 24-7 365...and checked daily.....hope this helps.

Oh looky here, someone from the Army coming to tell us that all is well! Of course nobody wanted the military to burn the stuff!!! What an idiotic idea when you can turn Sarin Gas into harmless salts by merely adding another chemical. Why hasn't this been done instead of storing it?

Something doesn't add up.

Oh, by the way, it seems that ATS is being watched by the Powers That Be if we are getting responses in our threads from the military!! Of course, the chap may be a bs'er!

As someone who is only a short drive away from the depot here in Kentucky, I can assure you this stuff is kept extremely safe.

BGAD is basically a massive storage facility for the country's biological and gaseous weapons. As the above Anon poster pointed out, this stuff has been scheduled to be destroyed for years now, and the governments couldn't decide how to go about handling that.

I don't see any problem with storing this stuff personally. Especially if it is kept safely, which it is.

We don't wany other countries having these chemical weapons, yet we stockpile them.. Our hypocrisy knows no bounds.

You're right.

We should let Iran hold on to some of them for us. You know...to be fair.

Originally posted by nyk537
You're right.

We should let Iran hold on to some of them for us. You know...to be fair.

If you call for a ban on the use of chemical weapons, it's the height of hypocrisy to possess them yourself, don't you think?

Why should the rest of the World disarm themselves ,when we apparently are unwilling to do so ourselves?