Umatilla chemical depot delays incineration Safety concerns arise during a trial burn at the
Army facility
AVIVA L. BRANDT The Associated Press August 18, 2004 The Umatilla Chemical
Depot won’t start destroying chemical weapons until sometime next week because
of safety issues that arose during last-minute preparations.
In a press release, chemical depot officials said that monitoring of
the ventilation system during the recent trial burn showed trace amounts
of the surrogate chemical vapor in the system’s charcoal filter banks.
Army spokeswoman Mary Binder said that the filter banks were doing their
job when they captured the chemical vapor from the test burn. But she said
depot management didn’t anticipate the volume of vapor trapped in the charcoal
filter banks and that they want to investigate.
Depot officials also said that workers needed to complete an air wash
of the building and remove all surrogate chemicals before they begin destroying
chemical weapons.
“It’s a serious problem if they’re having agent migration,” said Karyn
Jones of Hermiston, leader of the opposition group known as GASP. “If they
were burning mustard or sarin, that would have been what migrated through
the system. Luckily, they were using a surrogate. This is extremely serious.”
Depot workers had been scheduled to begin dismantling one M-55 rocket
Thursday.
