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(Salt Lake City-AP) -- A chemical-weapons incinerator was shut down today when workers discovered that water was contaminating a collection tank of V-X nerve agent.
The shutdown came 12 days into the plant's campaign to destroy 13-hundred tons of V-X agent.
The Deseret Chemical Depot, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, said the water caused a chemical reaction inside the collection tank for V-X nerve agent. It hasn't explained the chemical reaction, but says workers face no danger and that the plant will resume operations shortly.
Workers have been siphoning V-X nerve agent from M-55 rockets, mines, warheads and feeding the liquid agent into the incinerator. A separate furnace destroys the munitions.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
