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Volney Wallace, a retired federal chemist/scientist
of Dugway Proving Ground who is now living in Murray, has had
published letters to the editor in state and local papers concerning
why he believes that will be no public danger from the Army's present
system of nerve agent destruction in Tooele County. The argument he
presents is based on his Dugway work involvement and investigation of
a 1968 experimental VX agent spray that killed over 6,000 sheep in
Skull Valley, an incident that the Army denied for decades, thereby
dismissing liability and retribution.
Common sense and history say he's wrong. Dead wrong. The agents that
were and are selected for Dugway's investigation have been made as
virulent as possible and tested for disease-producing power on animals
and plants. The federal government's thesis that the sheep died from
eating chemically contaminated vegetation, and that sheep only were
afflicted, ignores discussion on the interdependence of the living
things of the desert ecosystem and the fact that exposure to chemical
toxins not only cause death but disease and genetic change. Skull
Valley in 1968 was not uninhabited. There were and are two Indian
reservations and several ranches where people live, raise animals and
crops; and for many, the land represents their only means of
livelihood. There also was a civilian and military work force with
dependents numbering several thousand at Dugway.
24 During the almost 30 years since the sheep incident, there have
been citizen and press concerns raised about chemical and biological
warfare programs, such as those being conducted in the county. These
concerns have elicited the standard governmental response that all is
scientifically safe and sound. The same rhetoric is occurring with the
chemical weapons demilitarization program at the Tooele Army Depot's
south area, even though classified reports, which have recently
surfaced, speak to significant dangers.
In my lifetime, I have observed numerous denials by public
representatives, with their appalling and glib dismissals of personal
tragedy on such matters as the WWII holocaust, Vietnam Agent Orange
use, Persian Gulf War chemical exposure, southern Utah nuclear
contamination and Tooele County's pervasive incidences of cancer and
autoimmune diseases. Public servants and others who accept tax monies
need to remember that their loyalty is not to (protection of) a
government but to the American PEOPLE who are the government.
Carolyn Palmer
Stansbury Park
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