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Millionth nerve gas destroyed in Utah

TOOELE, Utah, March 10 (UPI) -- The Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah has destroyed its millionth piece of chemical and blister-agent weapons, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

The U.S. Army's destruction facility has been operating since 1996, and appears well on course to meet its mandate of destroying its aging stockpile of chemical weapons by 2008.

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The depot's commanding officer, Col. Raymond Van Peltsaid, all nerve agents will be destroyed at the facility by next year, leaving only mustard blister agents to be incinerated after that.

Originally there were nearly 1.2 million munitions, or 13,617 tons of chemical weapons, held at the site before the destruction program began. Weapons have been stored at the depot since the early 1940s and some of them date to World War II.

The depot, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, stores the aging weapons in igloo-like bunkers and destroys them by heating the drained chemical agent to more than 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit.

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