OPINION
Thursday, February
26, 2004
Zacharias fires
another blank
There she goes again in
her attempts to demonize the people who work at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.
As is often the case, when Karen Zacharias goes shooting up the saloon,
all she has in her popgun is a little cork with a string attached.
If you’re really interested in what’s going on with the request to
“Change the Point of Emissions Compliance” at the Umatilla Chemical Agent
Disposal Facility, don’t try to understand it from her commentary. Here is
what she conveniently left out:
If this permit modification is granted, there will be no extra emissions
from the stack, no change in emission standards and no new equipment installed.
It simply allows the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility to take credit
for an additional filtration system already installed and permitted by the
state — and paid for by taxpayers — before it takes measurements to comply
with clean-air emissions standards. Changing only four words in the project’s
environmental permit will accomplish this.
To its credit, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is
giving the public multiple opportunities to comment on this.
Karen Zacharias and the rest of the anti-incineration gang badly
want you to believe there is something wrong with the 1,000 people in our
community devoting their lives to safely storing and destroying chemical
weapons.
Nice try, but no cigar.
FRANK HARKENRIDER