| DEQ administrator to
leave chemical demilitarization post HERMISTON — The state administrator responsible for ensuring environmental compliance at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility will leave the post in March to become head of the Office of Environmental Quality for Kansas City, Mo. Dennis Murphey came to Hermiston in 2003 to take the lead for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality as the U.S. Army moved toward bringing its chemical weapons incinerator complex on line at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, just west of town. The Chemical Demilitarization Program oversees and regulates the Army’s efforts to operate the incinerator, which began operation in September 2004. To date, the facility has destroyed nearly 55,000 rockets and more than 800 bombs containing the nerve agent sarin. It has safely destroyed more than 750,000 pounds of sarin. “I leave with great sense of pride for what we’ve all accomplished,” Murphey said, noting that the Army estimates the threat to the public from continued storage has been reduced by about 60 percent in the past year and a half. “It wan an enormous effort to finish up the testing and get agent operations under way.” DEQ will immediately begin a recruitment effort to fill Murphey’s position, said DEQ Director Stephanie Hallock. “We wish Dennis well in his new endeavor and appreciate his dedication to ensure that the incinerator facility has met Oregon’s highest standards of environmental protection,” Hallock said, adding that DEQ “will maintain a strong oversight presence” at the facility. Murphey said agent trial burns on two furnaces have been completed and trial burns on a third — the metal parts furnace — should take place by the end of this month. The Umatilla Chemical Depot initially stored about 12 percent of the nation’s supply of chemical weapons. After the rockets and bombs containing sarin nerve agent are destroyed, the disposal facility will move on to process weapons with VX nerve agent, and mustard, a blistering agent. All the chemical weapons must be destroyed by 2012, according to international treaty. Murphey, 56, will stay in his DEQ post through March 23. Before coming to Oregon he was the director of the Department of Environmental Management in Cincinnati. |
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