Dugway sheep incident
Encyclopedia
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
chemical and biological warfare programs at Dugway Proving Ground
Dugway Proving Ground
Dugway Proving Ground is a US Army facility located approximately 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah in southern Tooele County and just north of Juab County...
in Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
. Six thousand sheep were killed on ranches near the base, and the popular explanation blamed Army testing of chemical weapons for the incident, though alternative explanations have been offered. A report, commissioned by Air Force Press Officer Jesse Stay first made public in 1998 was called the "first documented admission" from the Army that a nerve agent
Nerve agent
Nerve agents are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
killed the sheep at Skull Valley.
Background
Since its founding in 1941, much of the activity at Dugway Proving GroundDugway Proving Ground
Dugway Proving Ground is a US Army facility located approximately 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah in southern Tooele County and just north of Juab County...
is a closely guarded secret. Activities at Dugway included aerial nerve agent
Nerve agent
Nerve agents are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
testing. According to reports from New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
, Dugway was still producing small quantities of anthrax
Anthrax
Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals...
as late as 1998, 30 years after the United States renounced biological weapons. There were at least 1,100 other chemical tests at Dugway during the time period of the Dugway sheep incident. In total, almost 500,000 pounds
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
(230 metric tons) of nerve agent were dispersed during open-air tests. There were also tests at Dugway with other weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
, including 328 open-air tests of biological weapons, 74 dirty bomb
Dirty bomb
A dirty bomb is a speculative radiological weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. The purpose of the weapon is to contaminate the area around the explosion with radioactive material, hence the attribute "dirty"....
tests, and the equivalent of eight intentional meltdown
Nuclear meltdown
Nuclear meltdown is an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency or by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission...
s of nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
s.
Incident
In the days preceding the Dugway sheep incident the United States ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
at Dugway Proving Ground conducted at least three separate operations involving nerve agents. All three operations occurred on March 13, 1968. One involved the test firing of a chemical artillery shell, another the burning of 160 U.S. gallon
Gallon
The gallon is a measure of volume. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use: the imperial gallon which is used in the United Kingdom and semi-officially within Canada, the United States liquid gallon and the lesser used United States dry...
s (600 L) of nerve agent in an open air pit and in the third a jet aircraft sprayed nerve agent in a target area about 27 miles (43.5 km) west of Skull Valley. It is the third event that is usually connected to the Skull Valley sheep kill.
The incident log at Dugway Proving Ground indicated that the sheep incident began with a phone call on March 17, 1968 at 12:30 a.m. The director of the University of Utah's
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
ecological and epidemiological contract with Dugway, a Dr. Bode, phoned Keith Smart, the chief of the ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and epidemiology
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
branch at Dugway to report that 3,000 sheep were dead in the Skull Valley
Skull Valley
The Skull Valley Indian Reservation is the Goshute Indian reservation located approximately 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. It belongs to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians of Utah, a federally recognized tribe....
area. The initial report of the incident came to Bode from the manager of a Skull Valley livestock company. The sheep were grazing in an area about 27 miles (43.5 km) from the proving ground; total sheep deaths of 6,000–6,400 were reported over the next several days as a result of the incident. The Dugway Safety Office's attempt to count the dead sheep compiled a total of 3,843.
Possible causes
One explanation in the aftermath of the incident was that a chemical or biological agent had escaped from the Dugway Proving Ground. Circumstantial evidence seemed to support this assertion, the United States ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
admitted to conducting open-air tests with the nerve agent
Nerve agent
Nerve agents are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
VX
VX (nerve agent)
VX, IUPAC name O-ethyl S-[2-ethyl] methylphosphonothioate, is an extremely toxic substance whose only application is in chemical warfare as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687...
in the days preceding the sheep kill. The Army also intimated that a spray nozzle had malfunctioned during the test causing an aircraft to continue spraying VX as it climbed to higher altitudes. It was also reported that a small amount of VX was found in the tissue of the dead sheep.
Other information contradicted the initial assumptions about the cause of the incident. One contradiction to nerve agent exposure as a cause came in the symptoms of some of the sheep following the incident. Several sheep, still alive, sat unmoving on the ground. The sheep refused to eat, but exhibited normal breathing patterns and showed signs of internal hemorrhaging. Regular breathing and internal hemorrhaging are inconsistent with nerve agent exposure. In addition, no other animals in the area, some much more susceptible to nerve agent poisoning, were affected.
Aftermath
The incident had an impact on the Army, and U.S. military policy within a year. The international infamy of the incident contributed to President Richard Nixon's decision to ban all open-air chemical weapon testing in 1969. The sheep incident was one of the events which helped contribute to a rise in public sentiment against the U.S. Army Chemical Corps during and after the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Ultimately, the Chemical Corps was almost disbanded as a result.
Following the incident, the Army and other state and federal agencies compiled reports, some of which were later characterized as "studies". A report which remained classified until 1978 and unreleased to the public until nearly 30 years after the incident was called the "first documented admission" by the Army that VX killed the sheep. In 1998, Jim Woolf, reporting for The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the U.S. city of Salt Lake City. It is distributed by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which also distributes the Deseret News. The Tribune — or "Trib," as it is locally known — is currently owned by the Denver-based MediaNews Group....
, made the content of the report public for the first time. The report described the evidence that nerve agent was the cause of the sheep kill as "incontrovertible." The 1970 report, compiled by researchers at the U.S. Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, stated that VX was found in both snow and grass samples recovered from the area three weeks after the sheep incident.
The report concluded that the "quantity of VX originally present was sufficient to account for the death of the sheep." Even after the report surfaced the Army maintained that it did not accept responsibility for the incident nor did they admit negligence. As late as 1997, one year before the report went public, U.S. Department of Defense officials stated that "the reason it (the report) was never published is because it wasn't particularly revealing."
See also
- Granite Peak InstallationGranite Peak InstallationGranite Peak Installation , also known as Granite Peak Range, was a U.S. biological weapons testing facility located on of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. GPI was a sub-installation of Dugway but had its own facilities, including utilities...
- Human experimentation in the United StatesHuman experimentation in the United StatesThere have been numerous experiments performed on human test subjects in the United States that have been considered unethical, and were often performed illegally, without the knowledge, consent, or informed consent of the test subjects....
- Operation CHASEOperation CHASEOperation CHASE was a United States Department of Defense program that involved the disposal of unwanted munitions at sea from May 1964 into the early 1970s....
- United States and weapons of mass destructionUnited States and weapons of mass destructionThe United States is known to have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and biological weapons. The U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in combat. The U.S. also used chemical weapons in World War I...
Further reading
- Boffey, Philip M. "Nerve Gas: Dugway Accident Linked to Utah Sheep Kill", (Citation, log-in required to view article) ScienceScience (journal)Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
December 27, 1968, Vol. 162, No. 3861, pp. 1460 – 1464. Retrieved November 26, 2007. - Sheep & the Army, Time Magazine, April 5, 1968, accessed October 10, 2008.
- "Toward the Doomsday Bug", Time Magazine, September 6, 1968, accessed October 12, 2008.
- Van Kampen, K.R., et al. "Effects of nerve gas poisoning in sheep in Skull Valley, Utah", Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, (Abstract), April 15, 1970; Vol. 156 Issue:8 pp. 1032–5, accessed October 10, 2008.
- Wright, Burton. "America's Struggle With Chemical-Biological Warfare", (Book reviewBook reviewA book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit. A book review could be a primary source opinion piece, summary review or scholarly review. It is often carried out in periodicals, as school work, or on the internet. Reviews are also often...
), Army Chemical Review, February, 2001, accessed via FindArticles.com on October 12, 2008.
External links
- Biewin, John. Sheep Kill, (radio broadcast), NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
, February 8, 1998, accessed October 10, 2008. - Cianciosi , Scott. "The Sheep Incident", DamnInteresting.com, March 17, 2008, accessed October 12, 2008.