LOCAL

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Sunday, February 01, 2004

Depot workers diligent in tracking down toxic leaks

By JEANNINE KORANDA of the East Oregonian
jkoranda@eastoregonian.com


HERMISTON — Several times in the last few months, Umatilla County Depot officials have announced there have been “leakers” at the depot.

While “leaker” is the term commonly used when chemical agents in weapons stored at the depot are detected during testing, it’s actually a misnomer. The name brings to mind images of a dripping faucet or fluid spilling from a glass, but usually the term relates to a low level of vapor that has been detected inside a storage igloo or near a particular weapon.

George Newman, chief of the Chemical Ammunition Division at the depot, described the leaks as similar to vapor from a gas can in your garage, where there is no fluid visible but there is a smell.

“You can smell it but really can’t see it, but you know (the gas can) is leaking because you can smell it,” he said.

Monitoring equipment is set to detect chemical particles at one quarter the amount a worker can be exposed to during a working lifetime (40 hours a week for 40 years).

“We are really talking about molecules,” depot public affairs officer Mary Binder said. “We’re talking about something that is very, very low.”

The amount of chemical released into the air was calculated in such a small amount, at parts per trillion, it was hard to put into visual terms, she said.

Outreach Office Manager Steve Myers said he’s heard the amount released in a detectable leak can be compared with filling a football stadium full of marbles. “Parts per trillion might be a handful,” he said.

So what happens with a leaker?

The chemical weapons at the depot, a mix of rockets, bombs, artillery shells, mines and ton containers, holding GB sarin, VX nerve gas and the blister agent mustard gas are from the World War II era.

Just like all aging things, no matter how well you take care of them some parts break down.

“Think of a car or vehicle, then think of the seals,” Binder said. “Even if you take super great care of the car, over time those seals are going to need to be replaced.”

The chemicals are housed in hollows inside the weapons, such as the artillery shell, which is roughly shaped like a bullet.

A seal holds the chemical inside the hollow, whether it is sealed in, pressed in or glued in, Newman said.

“Over time it’s going to break down just because of the chemical reactions within different compounds and metals versus the corrosiveness of the agent itself,” he said.

As the seals wear out, vapors escape.

In more extreme cases, like the 750 pound bomb that was leaking persistently in December, the chemical, or agent, can cause the casing to rust, creating holes.

With the December leaker, chemical agent leaked out in fluid form.

Newman said it’s possible that as workers were moving the bomb after isolating it something might have shifted, like a rust scale, allowing more agent to come out.

Although the leak was serious, the quantity might not be what people envision.

“When we are talking about massive quantities, you can think of buckets or pounds, but we are talking about more like two cups,” Binder said.

A leak like that is a very rare occurrence, Newman said. “Usually we just have to go by vapor detection.”

Don Barclay, site project manager for the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, pointed out that this was the first liquid leaker since the mid-’90s.

Myers said other sites have had problems with liquid leakers, but the Umatilla Chemical Depot has developed a reputation for having few such leaks.

More often, leakers are detected at much lower levels, either through weekly monitoring from outside the storage igloos. Vapors also can be detected when crews go inside and visually inspect each of the magazines once every three months.

A visual inspection is performed only after crews have checked the air inside the igloo from outside to make sure there is not chemical present.

Once no agent is detected, crews open the door and enter. In visual inspections two people enter and examine the munitions. They’re looking for shiny spots or rusty spots that might indicate a leak.

What happens when a leak is detected?

Igloos are constantly monitored to detect problems early on.

When a leaker is detected, a methodical process of elimination begins to narrow down which weapon is the problem.

Newman explained the process using an example of looking for a leaking bomb.

Within the igloos are 11 rows of bombs stacked two to a pallet.

If the vapor reading is taken from outside the igloo, crews will first attach a powerful filtration system and clear out the air inside the igloo. Once that’s done crews can enter.

First the crew walks the aisles separating the 11 rows and taking readings

“Somewhere we’ll have readings higher than all the others and that gives us an area,” Newman said.

Crews then drape huge pieces of plastic over each row that could contain the leaker. Later, crews come back and test the air under the plastic, then crews do a visual inspection.

“We try to narrow it down, then try to put what ever we expect is leaking into plastic containers. Then we monitor to ensure it’s the one that we want,” he said.

“The basic procedure is the same whether they are doing it for bombs, rockets etc. It’s an isolation process.”

Once a leaker is identified, the weapon is packed and sealed into another container that will isolate the leak.

How safe is it?

While news of leaks may seem to be in the news frequently, Binder said the depot stores more than 220,000 items and since 1994 there have only been about 155 times when vapor was detected.

Newman also pointed out that the detection technology used can sense vapors in minute qualities, “as opposed to 20 years ago when the technology was dinosauric.”

Since the 1960s, most people in the area don’t get very worried when they hear about a leaker, Binder said. “People in the local communities understand that this part of doing business with munitions we have and an aging stockpile.”

More questions tend to come from people outside the area, and educating the public is an ongoing process, she said. “It’s not something everybody understands.”

Myers, from the outreach office, which works to educate the people as well, also deals with public inquiries. While it educates the public about the incineration process, the outreach office, which is funded by the incineration plant on the depot and not officially tied to the Army, he said.

Many local people have worked on the depot, or know someone who has or does, those people tell their friends, families and neighbors about what is going on. That makes people less worried about the depot and weapons, he said.

People who are new to the area sometimes have a different feeling about the depot, Myers said.

He’s seen people come in to the outreach office upset and worried about what is going on.

Generally, though, people don’t seem overly concerned about the depot, he said. “It’s been here for 42 years.”

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Contact Jeannine Koranda at (800) 522-0255 (ext. 1-226 after hours) or by e-mail jkoranda@eastoregonian.com.