Defense Environment Alert
February 12, 2002

ARMY EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS EXERCISE AT UMATILLA SUCCESSFUL

A January emergency management exercise at the Army's chemical weapons stockpile site in Oregon proved successful in passing all applicable performance measures, Oregon officials say. The exercise comes just months before the Army's scheduled start of surrogate trial bums in the incinerator at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility there. Under the disposal facility's hazardous waste permit, the governor must ensure that an adequate emergency response program is in place before the Army may begin incinerating chemical weapons at the plant.

The Jan. 26 exercise was held to test 11 of 15 existing performance measures. It grew out of an exercise last May that found the emergency preparedness program failed about half of the performance measures. The January exercise also tested the performance of existing tactical radio systems and examined the integration of new communications equipment and procedures, according to an official with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Umatilla's Chemical Stockpiletmergency Preparedness Program, or CSEPP, is a federally funded program run by local and state entities and attempts to mitigate the effects of a possible chemical emergency related to stockpiled chemical weapons, according to the Army.

While emergency personnel failed in executing one procedure -- neglecting to contact one local fire department during the exercise -- they nonetheless passed all of the performance measures tested, according to the official. The scenario established for the exercise was one in which smoke and fire were observed from an M55 rocket igloo, according to another state source.

According to slides presented by the state on the exercise, the performance measures that were tested are:

• "The time between discovery of an upset condition and providing a Protective Action Recommendation (PAR) must be 10 minutes or less,
• "The time between receiving notification from [the Umatilla depot] at Umatilla, Morrow, and Benton Counties and completing the procedure for starting the four alerting systems must be 6 minutes or less,
• "The responding officer must be dispatched from the appropriate dispatch center within 3 minutes of event notification by the depot,
• "The correct interstate access control point must be in place within 15 minutes of the dispatch,"
• The Oregon Department of Transportation will, provide backup traffic-control support to law enforcement at Interstate 84 westbound and eastbound within a specified time,
• · "First responder and hospital locations must be capable of rapidly establishing decontamination sites,"
• · Hospital and decontamination sites' medical and fire personnel must be able to perform both ambulatory and non-ambulatory decontamination,
• Ambulance, hospital and decontamination sites' medical and fire personnel must be able to screen and triage patients,
• Ambulance, hospital, and decontamination sites' medical and fire personnel must be able to adequately treat patients showing symptoms of chemical agent exposure, and
• Protect emergency personnel by adhering to certain Occupational, Safety and Health Administration regulations.

A governor-appointed panel of advisors was briefed on the exercise Jan. 30 and plans to write a status letter to the governor on it. The panel, dubbed the Executive Review Panel, will eventually make a recommendation to the governor on whether CSEPP at Umatilla adequately meets a standard of protecting the population, the DEQ official says. Part of the panel's determination will be looking at the program's ability to meet the performance measures, according to the source.

The Army is planning to start surrogate trial bums at the Umatilla disposal facility in late May and begin operations in February 2003, according to the Army.