Anniston Star
December 28, 2002

A look west: Oregon town finds peace knowing it is prepared

By Jason Landers
Star Staff Writer
12-28-2002

Life in Umatilla County, Ore., is much the same as it was 40 years ago when the Army moved its first shipment of liquid death to storage here.

There's a Wal-Mart now, and the once predominantly agricultural economy is diversifying, but familiarities of the pre-chemical weapons storage days remain.
Indians still cling for survival to a treaty that has allowed others to carve up their lands like a checkerboard. But in their "longhouse" meeting halls, similar to a church, they hold fast to a worship of the Creator that has been chanted in their native tongue for countless generations.

The interstate parallels the Columbia River as it snakes through the high desert. The flatlands steadily ascend, forming weathered hills that gently roll into the barren east face of the Cascade Mountains. Desert gives way to rain-tipped evergreens and wild blackberry vines that hug the rugged western slopes.

Umatilla County, where the Army keeps watch over the weapons, draws its name from a Native American word that means "water rippling across sand." It is at this juncture of stark contrasts that unnatural Cold War instruments of death await a fiery end.

They lie entombed in earth-covered igloos in remote northeast Oregon, at an Army depot named after the county and the confederated Indian tribes that first settled the land.
Here rockets, mortars, projectiles, mines and ton containers are filled with the very same chemical agents the United States accuses Sadaam Hussein of having, weapons so vile, so sinister, that mere possession of them is grounds for war.

This is one of eight sites in the continental United States that stores tons of aging chemical munitions. Except for the recent addition of emergency sirens, road barricades and flashing roadside message boards - not to mention the hoarding of duct tape and plastic - life here remains much the same as it always has been.

Stored just off the interstate beneath hundreds of man-made mounds that pimple the ground, the munitions grow unstable with age. They leak, and in some cases, the VX, sarin or blister agent they contain changes from dense liquid to solid.

Motorists travelling the interstate have an unobstructed view of the hundreds of concrete-reinforced bunkers topped with dirt. Each mound is capable of holding a thousand or more rockets.

An accident at a bunker has the potential of spreading a deadly plume over a three-county region that includes portions of Washington state.

Similar mounds dot the landscape in Anniston, where hills and dense foliage obscure the view. Such mounds also are found in Pine Bluff, Ark.; Tooele, Utah; Blue Grass, Ky.; Pueblo, Colo.; Aberdeen, Md.; and Newport, Ind.

The Army is caretaker of the stockpiles. At Umatilla, Anniston and Pine Bluff, the Army has erected billion-dollar sister incineration facilities to dispose of the threat. The technology has been time-tested at two similar but less-advanced facilities: one at Tooele and the other on Johnston Atoll Island in the Pacific.

Everyone acknowledges the weapons at the eight sites must go, though environmental activists oppose the Army's incineration plans in favor of the alternative neutralization

Report after report from scientific bodies like the National Research Council has concluded the risk of continued storage far outweighs the smaller risk associated with burning the weapons. Studies show neutralization is as safe as incineration, though there has not been a recent head-to-head comparison that gives one a definitive edge over the other.

These same reports concede the sites are potential targets for terrorists eager to see the world's only remaining superpower trip over the mines it once laid. They also suggest the stockpiles are accidents waiting to happen, where catastrophe and worst-case scenarios are only a slip-up away.

A chunk of reinforced concrete, about the size of a tombstone, at the Umatilla depot attests to the fact that handling munitions is hazardous work. It stands as a memorial to six depot workers who, in 1944, were killed during an explosion at an igloo that housed hundreds of 500-pound bombs. The cause of that explosion, which shook nearby towns and threatened to set off a chain reaction, remains a mystery. The memorial was the largest piece of concrete remaining after the blast.

Preparing communities near the stockpiles for a disaster that may never come is a task of the Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They work in conjunction with local and state officials from each of the sites under the guise of a federal program known as the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program, or CSEPP.

It is a 15-year-old program fraught with inconsistencies that has led some communities, like Umatilla County, down the road of "adequate" preparedness, while others, like Calhoun County, have fallen by the wayside - almost as unequipped for a disaster today as it was before the program began.

Unlike their counterparts in Umatilla, Calhoun County officials can't say their constituents are prepared. They say residents lack protection at their homes; schools fall short of maximum protection; first responders lack crucial equipment; and they say the county's road system will bottleneck during a major evacuation.

The stopwatch on preparedness is ticking as the facilities move toward operations with live agent. The Anniston chemical weapons incinerator in Calhoun County is next in line to start up; tentatively it is scheduled to begin at the first of the year, with Umatilla expected to follow in the fall of 2003.

In a five-part series that begins Sunday, The Star compares Anniston and Umatilla and the preparedness measures in place at each community. The series explores the attitudes, regulatory differences and political climates that have influenced readiness at each site. It also delves into issues surrounding security and addresses aspects of the incineration and

What the series ultimately shows is that, despite millions of federal dollars being funneled into Calhoun County, the more than 110,000 souls living here are not prepared and probably won't be ready until well after incineration begins.

Whether the lack of preparedness will delay startup is a debate not yet resolved.