Monday June 6, 2005
HERMISTON, Ore. — The incinerator at the chemical weapons depot
near here likely will be allowed to resume burning rockets and other
weapons this week after a three-week delay caused by unexplained fires.
The Umatilla depot stores about 3,700 tons of the nation's
chemical stockpile of mustard, sarin and VX nerve agent. KGW Since April three M55 rockets containing the nerve gas sarin have
exploded and burned while being chopped up at the U.S. Army's Umatilla
Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. The fires in reinforced unmanned rooms caused no injuries and little
damage, but the cause has not been found. The nerve agent is drained from the weapons before they are cut
into eight pieces for incineration. The plant was designed to withstand occasional rocket fires, but
engineers had figured on maybe just one from the 105,000 rockets on
hand, said Doug Hamrick, project manager with Washington Group
International, the contractor that runs the plant. On May 18, after the third blast in six weeks, the Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality suspended processing. State DEQ workers have seen data suggesting the fires do not threaten
people or the environment, and they have some confidence in work under
way to prevent or manage future fires. The DEQ's chemical demilitarization program administrator, Dennis
Murphey said reports remain to be read, so the restart order may wait
until Thursday. Umatilla officials said they are ready to restart because they
think it is safer than to wait, even if more fires occur. "It would not be prudent for me to expect this will go away," said
Don Barclay, the Army's manager for the project. "The key is, are
we protecting our workers? Are we protecting the public? And we are."
The depot's chemical weapons are so deadly that both plant and
DEQ officials say it's safer to burn the aging rockets than to store
them. "It's not like fine wine," Hamrick said. "It's not going to improve
with age." Engineers confirmed that the machinery and reinforced rooms used
to process rockets can withstand more fires. Analysts calculated that
more fires do not increase safety risks for workers or the public.
Crews took steps to limit fires, including adding more spray nozzles
to cool the rocket-chopping blade and extinguish flames, Hamrick said.
Umatilla has had four rockets catch fire since November, all while
a blade chopped through their explosive propellant. The four other U.S. chemical arms incinerators have had fires at
the same stage, making the propellant the focus of investigations.
Workers in a secure room will remove the propellant and motor sections
from nine rockets beginning Monday and send it to an Army lab in New
Jersey for testing. Those tests should take roughly six weeks. The depot contains about 12 percent of the nation's supply of chemical
weapons, and began burning them late last year. The project is expected
to take several years to complete. 