LOCAL
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Attorney for workers
claims evidence of chemical leak
PORTLAND — Attorneys for
construction workers at the Umatilla Chemical Depot told a federal judge
on Tuesday there is evidence of a leak that exposed the workers to a nerve
agent more than five years ago.
William Dozier, one of the attorneys representing workers who filed
a lawsuit against the U.S. Army, said monitoring was inadequate and infrequent
and that low-level leaks were routinely ignored at the Umatilla Chemical
Depot in Hermiston.
The workers were building an incinerator complex that will be used
to destroy 7.4 million pounds of deadly nerve gas and other chemical weapons
stored at the depot just west of Hermiston.
James Brennan, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, said
that safeguards were more than adequate and a thorough investigation found
no evidence of any leaks.
Brennan said that the symptoms shown by dozens of workers on Sept.
15, 1999, were caused by “something generated at the workplace and nothing
more.”
He said none of the workers showed one of the classic symptoms of
exposure to sarin nerve gas — pinpoint pupils.
Brennan noted that victims of a 1995 sarin attack in Japan showed
this common symptom, but none of the workers at the chemical depot showed
signs of pinpoint pupils.
U.S. District Judge Dennis Hubel is hearing the second phase of the
lawsuit without a jury. The two-week trial follows an 11-page ruling by Hubel
last February that found the Army was negligent in assessing the situation
in 1999 and in determining its cause. The second phase of the trial is to
determine whether there was an actual leak. A third phase will be required
to assess damages.
The incinerator is now complete and in the testing phase. The Army
hopes to begin burining chemical weapons by fall. The Umatilla Chemical Depot
holds about 12 percent of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile.