Tuesday September 6, 2005
HERMISTON, Ore. -- It will be years before all the chemical weapons
are gone and the Umatilla Chemical Depot is closed, but development
plans for the site are already being made. "It's absolutely one of the best sites for industrial development
in Oregon," former Hermiston Mayor Frank Harkenrider said. "No doubt
about it." Harkenrider said the depot is a natural industrial site because
it is close to the Columbia River, with freeways bordering both the
east and south edges of the property. The infrastructure includes
roads and rail lines, natural gas and electrical connections, warehouses
and office buildings. "It has so much potential its unbelievable," Harkenrider said.
Kim Puzey, director of the Port of Umatilla, said there are plenty
of models for redevelopment of closed military bases around the country.
"In this case there should be relatively little negative impact
and significant advantages into being able to convert a military
installation into a development park," he said. The federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission recently made
the official decision to close the depot, even though the closure
has been planned since the 1980s. An incinerator complex built at
the depot beginning in the late 1990s is being used to destroy the
stockpile of obsolete chemical weapons stored in concrete igloos spread
around the base. "We've been at this for almost 20 years," Umatilla County Commissioner
Bill Hansell. He is a member of the Local Reuse Authority, or LRA, an advisory
group created by then Gov. Goldschmidt in the late 1980s. Hansell expects the group to schedule a meeting soon now that the
base commission has confirmed the Umatilla Depot will close when the
Army is done incinerating the chemical weapons stored there and addressing
any environmental concerns. The LRA is the federal model for creating one agency to deal with
the Army on the closure and reuse of depots, Hansell noted. The group had hoped to lease some depot land and resources no longer
used by the Army, such as warehouses with rail access. But that plan
cooled after security concerns increased sharply following the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks. "I don't think anything is going to happen until after all munitions
are destroyed," said Morrow County Commissioner John Wenholz, also
a longtime LRA member. The primary mission remains to help the depot and the communities
around it prepare for the closure and transfer of the depot to public
use, Hansell said. "We want to use it to the highest level of public benefit," he
said, including economic development, job creation and increasing
the tax base that supports local schools and governments. But Gary Neal, the director of the Port of Morrow, said he is concerned
that the advisory group "may make it more complicated than it needs
to be." Neal said Morrow and Umatilla counties and their ports can develop
the depot land within its borders on their own. Carl Scheeler, wildlife program manager with the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and a longtime LRA member, said
the working relationship among the counties, ports and tribes through
the LRA has been a good one. But he said the tribal perspective is a bit different. While the
depot land may provide a unique opportunity for local government partnerships
and economic development, the tribes also "have rights and interest
in any public land out there" that falls within their original ceded
treaty areas. Wenholz said the broad authority given the advisory group may be
one of its strengths. "The reuse authority is not the tribes, its not the county, its
not the ports, its a separate group" designed to boost economic development
for all, Wenholz said. 
AP file photo
Earthen covered bunkers housing chemical weapons at the Umatilla Chemical
Depot near Hermiston, Ore.