Friday July 22, 2005
The U.S. Army thinks a combination of nitroglycerine and high pressure
is responsible for several recent fires at the Umatilla Chemical Depot near
Hermiston. Those fires caused only minor damage but halted rocket-destruction work
at the depot for weeks this spring while crews looked for the cause of the
fires. All three Umatilla blasts occurred as a steel blade chopped through the
propellant section of M55 rockets from a lot made in October 1962. Machines
chop the rockets into pieces and feed them into a furnace after draining sarin
nerve gas from them. Umatilla workers sent motor sections from nine of those rockets to Army
explosive experts in New Jersey for tests. Those tests showed that nitroglycerine
had slowly leaked from the propellant in all nine cases, Army engineers said
Thursday. Engineers also are checking to see whether the leaking nitroglycerine poses
other threats. Tests so far indicate that the rockets are safe in storage,
transport and handling, the Army said. A final report is expected in August.
Umatilla has destroyed roughly a quarter of the 91,400 sarin-armed M55
rockets the Army stored at the depot. Since the incinerators restarted in
June, several hundred rockets from the October 1962 lot have been destroyed
without any fires, according to Depot spokeswoman Mary Binder. ___ Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonian.com