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Thursday, June 09, 2005

Depot awaits restart go-ahead

By HAL McCUNE of the East Oregonian
hmccune@eastoregonian.com

HERMISTON — Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility officials are hoping to resume processing rockets today after the state Department of Environmental Quality rescinded its stop-work order following a three-week shutdown of the incineration facility.

Dennis Murphey, administrator of the DEQ’s chemical demilitarization program, said this morning he was satisfied with the Army’s efforts to investigate the cause of recent rocket fires, take actions to reduce their frequency and mitigate the consequences if they occur again.

He said he expects a letter to be sent to the Umatilla Chemical Depot today “to authorize them to resume rocket processing.”

Rockets were in place this morning and ready for processing as Depot officials awaited written permission.

“Our goal is to restart processing within two hours after receiving notification,” Don Barclay, Army site project manager for the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, said this morning.

“We will continue to focus on safety,” Mary Binder, Depot spokeswoman, said of the rate of rocket processing. “It’s not a production line.”

Rockets will be processed at a pace allowing operators and equipment to get back in sync, she added, with extra caution taken as rockets from the October 1962 lot are processed. The three recent fires at Umatilla were traced to rockets from that lot.

Murphey stressed that the Army and Washington Group, which runs the incineration plant for the Army, will continue investigating the rocket fires as processing resumes and report regularly to DEQ. Among a wide range of activities, the Army is analyzing the rocket propellant from that October 1962 lot.

While the Army’s task force has been unable so far to definitively determine the cause of recent rocket fires at Umatilla and a similar incinerator at Pine Bluff, Ark., it has taken steps it thinks will reduce their frequency and lessen the impact.

Those fires — three at Umatilla over a six-week period and two at Pine Bluff — involved inadvertent ignition of propellant remaining in the rockets as they were being cut up for incineration, resulting in a low-order explosion and fire.

The fires occurred in the Explosive Containment Room, preventing any danger to workers or any concern about chemical agent release. A recent report by the Army Corps of Engineers concluded the “structural integrity” of the containment rooms was not compromised by the incidents, nor would repeated similar fires present a threat.

The Washington Group began processing rockets last September. When processing was stopped May 18, the facility had destroyed 14,530 M55 GB rockets filled with sarin nerve agent, about 16 percent of the depot’s stockpile.

The most rockets that have been destroyed in a day is 536, on April 15, while the most destroyed in a month is 3,362, in March.

Umatilla Chemical Depot stores about 12 percent of the nation’s supply of chemical weapons. In addition to rockets containing sarin, it stores VX nerve agent and mustard, a blistering agent, which also must be destroyed according to international treaty.