This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
WASHINGTON - Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, added his name Wednesday to legislation stripping funding for a Department of Defense study on moving stockpiles of aging chemical weapons in Colorado to an Army incinerator in Utah's Tooele County. "Transporting these weapons across state lines is illegal, and rightly so," Hatch said in announcing he has joined as a co-sponsor to a bill introduced by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., to block the study. "These are volatile, deadly chemicals that would pass right through highly populated areas in Utah, and there's no way we could guarantee their safety." As a cost-cutting move, the Pentagon has directed the Army's Chemical Materials Agency to evaluate options for moving some of the stockpiles in Colorado and Kentucky to existing facilities in other states in order to meet an April 2012 treaty deadline for weapons destruction. - Christopher Smith
