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Members of a tiny American Indian band in western Utah hope the
government will fund a multimillion-dollar study to determine if
something deadly lies beneath their West Desert reservation.
Just two years ago the U.S. Army notified the Skull Valley Band of the
Goshute Indian Tribe that the possibly toxic carcasses of more than
1,200 sheep were buried in four trenches on tribal land. This was one
of five Tooele County burial sites for the 6,400 sheep that died
mysteriously in 1968 after a suspected nerve-gas leak at the Army's
nearby Dugway Proving Ground.
"I knew the sheep died and were buried some place, but I didn't know
they were so close to our village," said newly elected tribal chairman
Leon Bear. "They're right in our back yards."
If nerve gas killed the sheep, he fears toxic chemicals could remain
in the trenches and spread through the groundwater.
"We really don't know what's under there," he said. "We don't know if
it's hazardous to our health."
To find out, the Goshutes want an extensive environmental
investigation that would begin with the burial site and eventually
cover the entire 18,000-acre reservation.
The Goshutes want all of their land and water checked for residues
from the chemical weapons that have been tested at Dugway, including
blister, vomiting and choking agents, tear gas, binary compounds and
nerve gas.
State hazardous-waste experts have encouraged the Army to examine all
the sheep burial sites as part of its base-cleanup effort, but they
don't expect anything to be found.
"If their deaths were caused by a chemical agent, given the length of
time there certainly isn't going to be anything left of a dangerous
nature," said Dennis Downs, director of the Utah Division of Solid and
Hazardous Waste.
Even so, he said the testing would resolve any lingering concerns
about what might be lurking beneath the surface.
The Army never accepted blame for the 1968 incident, but there is
strong circumstantial evidence that an airplane testing new equipment
for spraying nerve gas malfunctioned on March 13, 1968. Rather than
dropping its entire load on Dugway, part of the deadly chemical
appears to have been blown as much as 35 miles east to public and
private lands.
Sheep appeared to be hardest-hit because they eat snow for water
during the winter. If the chemical was deposited on the snow surface,
they would have received a higher dose than other animals.
Although the Army later compensated ranchers, military experts said
the symptoms shown by the sheep did not exactly match those of
nerve-gas exposure. They raised the possibility of contaminated grain
killing the sheep.
Recent studies by the Army Corps of Engineers have identified five
sites where those sheep were buried, "although there is a possibility
there are others," said Jason Fanselau, spokesman for the corps'
Sacramento district.
The biggest burial site is near White Rock on Bureau of Land
Management property where a large flock of sheep died. The second is
on land belonging to the 117-member tribe.
Three others are on private property in Skull and Rush valleys, 60
miles southwest of Salt Lake.
Bear said the tribe knew nothing of the burial site until 1993 when
the Army sent a letter requesting permission to venture onto the
reservation to check the area for residual contamination.
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