TOOELE, Utah, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- The Army has begun incinerating thousands of containers of deadly mustard gas in the Utah desert, helping the United States comply with international accords.
The project will last six to 10 years and involve burning about 6,200 tons of the liquid blister agent, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. But the disposal is made more difficult by the presence of an estimated 800 pounds of toxic mercury.
The Army plans to install sulfur-impregnated carbon filters that will scrub the mercury from the exhaust, Deseret Chemical Depot spokeswoman Alaine Southworth says.
A conservation organization says this may not work and argues the mustard agent could be neutralized with plain hot water without releasing potentially hazardous contaminants into the air.
The destruction of the mustard gas begins the last major phase of a program to destroy much of the nation's aging chemical weapons to comply with the 1993 international Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.
