LOCAL
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Depot preparations
near final stages
By AMYJO BROWN
of the East Oregonian
ajbrown@eastoregonian.com
HERMISTON — An August
decision on the start of incineration of chemical weapons at the Umatilla
Chemical Depot continues to be likely, depot officials are expected to report
to the Environmental Quality Commission Friday.
“We’re still very busy, but we’re still moving forward assuming we’re
going to make it,” said Dennis Murphey, program administrator for the Department
of Environmental Quality’s chemical demilitarization program.
Murphey, as well as site managers at the depot, will provide status
reports to the EQC in Portland Friday on the depot’s readiness to begin burning
the more than 7.5 million pounds of chemical agent stored there.
The EQC has the final say in whether the depot can start its long-awaited
disposal project. It will meet in Hermiston Aug. 13 to make its decision.
Disposal could start as soon as five days after that.
However, if the EQC is told at any point in the next few weeks that
depot officials need more time for preparations, the August meeting would
be canceled and the EQC’s next chance to vote would be in September, delaying
the start of incineration for at least one more month.
Chances of meeting the deadline for an August decision are good,
according to Mary Binder, spokesperson for the U.S. Army at the depot. She
said that as of Wednesday the checklist of items that need to be completed
for EQC approval had been whittled down to 14, compared to nearly 70 items
two months ago.
Murphey also said he is optimistic about meeting the August target
date.
Testing on the Brine Reduction Area, a project that got off to a
late start and involves disposal of hazardous waste generated by the furnaces
destroying the weapons, should be completed today, he said. Preliminary results
from those tests are needed for EQC approval.
Otherwise, activities are on schedule and, so far, there is nothing
to indicate a need for more delays, Murphey said.
“For the people involved, it’s a major milestone that we’re still
looking at a startup date just four weeks away,” Murphey said.
To emphasize the closeness of the day of EQC approval, employees
at the depot will soon begin operating the disposal facility each day as
if it were destroying the chemical weapons, Binder said. For example, that
means workers will wear protective suits and carry and use air monitoring
equipment frequently.
When the facility is given the go-ahead, it will begin destroying
M55 rockets filled with GB (sarin) nerve agent, the most volatile of all
the munitions the depot stores. GB nerve agents are clear, colorless and
tasteless liquids and have no odor. There are 91,375 M55 rockets at the depot.
About five days after the EQC approval, workers will begin moving
the rockets a few at a time to the disposal facility. The destruction process
will move slowly, rocket-by-rocket, step-by-step, the first couple of weeks.