LOCAL
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Depot reports
power supply problem solved
By AMYJO BROWN
of the East Oregonian
eonews@eastoregonian.com
IRRIGON — Power supply
problems troubling the Umatilla Chemical Depot should be resolved early next
week, at least for the short-term, Depot Commander Lt. Col. David Holliday
reported to the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program Governing
Board.
The group met Wednesday at Stokes Landing in Irrigon.
It seems birds are partly at fault for the interruptions in power
this summer, Holliday said
Since July, the depot has been experiencing power surges and outages
in its administrative area — the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility,
the plant that will soon begin burning the depot’s supply of 7.4 million
pounds of chemical weapons, has not been affected, as it runs off its own
power supply. But CSEPP personnel have been concerned about interruptions
in a software program that sends weather data to their safety center.
The data is needed constantly in order to accurately predict the
direction of a plume of chemical agent, if a catastrophic accident happened
at the depot, said Casey Beard, Morrow County’s Emergency manager. Beard
sent a letter in early August to the Department of Environmental Quality
requesting that the DEQ look into the issue.
Details about what power outages have occurred, what equipment has
been disrupted and the steps taken to prevent further outages should be provided
to the Department of Environmental Quality by Tuesday, said Dennis Murphey,
DEQ’s administrator for its chemical demilitarization program.
In the meantime, Holliday said he believes he has the problem in
hand.
“There’s a lot of wildlife on the depot, and what’s happening is
that birds are landing on the wires,” he said.
Although normally that wouldn’t be an issue, he said certain electrical
switches aren’t responding to the birds’ disruption of the wires. He added
that the depot is still on its original power grid, built in 1942. Upgrades
to the system have been made over the years, but since 2001, the depot has
added a significant number of personnel.
“It’s interesting to note that we’ve had a 7 percent growth a year
on average in our power usage,” he said.
He said that while replacing the faulty switches will be a temporary
solution, it is likely that the depot will need to build a separate power
grid in the long-term.
He also said he doesn’t expect the power issue to be a reason for
further delay of the start up of incineration operations at the UMCDF, which
is expected to begin burning rockets as early as next week. A separate issue
was the reason for his decision, along with other senior management, to delay
start up until next week.
“The loss of commercial power has not hindered the facility’s ability
to do its core function,” Holliday said.