LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — An Army inspector general’s report concludes Kentucky’s chemical weapons stockpile inadequately monitored a deadly nerve agent for two years, although it found no evidence any workers were exposed or any agent escaped the storage igloos into the atmosphere.

The report covering September 2003 through August 2005 at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond was obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Washington-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Richard Sloan, a spokesman for the chemical weapons operation at the depot, said Monday the Army was preparing a response but had no immediate comment on the specific findings.

“We have received a copy of the inspector general’s report and will go over it carefully to see if there’s anything additional we can do to provide enhanced safety for the community and its citizens,” Sloan said.

The 51-page inspector general’s report seems to validate some allegations by Donald Van Winkle, a former weapons monitor at the depot who claimed he was pushed out of his job after raising safety concerns about the air monitoring system used in the igloos where rockets and mortars containing the nerve agent VX are housed. In December, an administrative law judge dismissed a whistle blower lawsuit in which Van Winkle argued the depot retaliated against him for reporting the violations.

Van Winkle specifically complained to superiors that the conversion pads — chemical-soaked material that converts VX into a vapor more easily detected by monitoring equipment — were improperly moved in 2003 from inside the igloo near the weapons to the exterior wall. Although the move was done to make the pads more accessible during maintenance, Van Winkle argued it provided a less reliable reading. In 2005, they were moved back.

The inspector general’s report agreed with Van Winkle that the weapons site violated protocol for two years and, as a result, “an accurate measurement of any VX agent vapor release would not have been possible.”

It disagreed with him, however, on the impact of that mistake. The report dismissed as “unfounded” claims by Van Winkle and others that the wrongly placed conversion pads created inaccurate readings, jeopardized the health and safety of workers and allowed VX agent to escape into the atmosphere.

Paula Dinerstein, an attorney for PEER who represented Van Winkle in his lawsuit, said the report nonetheless raised troubling issues about the way some of the world’s most dangerous chemicals were monitored in Kentucky.

“At Blue Grass, the Army was flying blind in protecting its chemical weapons stockpile,” Dinerstein said. “Incredibly, the Army’s attitude appears to be that since no workers or civilians were killed then no harm, no foul.”

PEER had sought the inspector general’s report for years but the Army cited a pending criminal investigation in withholding the document. The status of that investigation remains unclear.

Craig Williams, executive director of the Berea, Ky.-based watchdog Chemical Weapons Working Group, said he found the report disturbing but agreed with its conclusion that health risks were probably minimal. Although VX is far more lethal than the GB nerve agent known as sarin, also stored at the depot, Williams said VX usually requires high temperatures to become volatile and spread in the air.

“You can be negligent in your execution of the monitoring as directed and still not have an incident,” Williams said. “That’s possible here. It’s probable, really.”

Blue Grass is expected to begin destroying its weapons stockpile in 2014 and will be the last to finish in 2017. It is already the only stockpile to still have VX munitions, with 17,733 rockets that are each about six feet long and 12,816 mortar rounds.

No VX leak has ever been reported in Kentucky, Williams said. The largest leak of any agent reported there was an August 2007 spill involving liquid sarin, which sparked an emergency operation to dispose of the container that housed it.

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