LATEST NEWS
Saturday, August 21, 2004
CSEPP presence
comfort to many
By AMYJO BROWN
of the East Oregonian
ajbrown@eastoregonian.com
HERMISTON — Over the past
several years, much work has been done to secure communities near the Umatilla
Chemical Depot, and while that work has reduced residents’ risk from the
depot, it has also had an added, every day benefit for residents.
With federal funding distributed through the Chemical Stockpile Emergency
Preparedness Program (CSEPP), many of the rural communities surrounding the
depot have received significant upgrades in city services — upgrades that
they probably would not have been able to afford without CSEPP’s influence,
the cities’ personnel said.
Fire, police and medical responders in the west-end of Umatilla County
and in Morrow County have significantly advanced their equipment, adding,
among other things, ambulances, a rescue boat, top-of-the-line defibrillators
and a “sweet” radio system that allows all emergency responders to communicate
on the same system without interference and interruptions, said Steve Frazier,
assistant chief for the Hermiston Fire and Emergency Services District.
“They’ve done us such a good job,” Frazier said about CSEPP.
Hermiston, the largest city near the depot, will benefit not only
from funding to help its expansion of its fire department, but also from
new road sinage, traffic signals and needed road improvements, all “things
the city needs to grow,” said its Mayor Bob Severson.
CSEPP has, in fact, infused more than $94 million into Umatilla and
Morrow counties, which have 42,226 people living within risk of a catastrophic
accident at the depot. More than 7.4 million pounds of chemical nerve and
blister agents within a variety of bombs, land mines and bulk containers
are stored there.
It was scheduled to begin moving and destroying the weapons this
week, but officials have delayed startup of the incineration process (where
the munitions and chemical agent will be destroyed by fire) until next week.
When choosing the needed equipment, “I think the first thing that
(CSEPP) always considers is how does it relate to if we have to respond to
a chemical emergency,” said Cheryl Seigal, Umatilla County’s spokesperson
for CSEPP. “Sometimes they find that things done by CSEPP do have other utilizations.”
Take, for instance, the swing-arm barricades installed at four Interstate
84 locations. Those would be used by state police to close off the highway,
if a release of chemical agent occurred at the depot. But they also come
in handy if the roads have to be shut down for other reasons, such as weather
conditions. In addition, 19 highway reader boards installed by CSEPP are
used to announce hazardous conditions, road closures and Amber Alerts.
“(CSEPP) has worked hard to see that communities got way more than
they could have gotten on their own,” said Michael Roxbury, fire chief of
the Umatilla Rural Fire District.
Ron Sivey, street superintendent for Hermiston, said he is excited
about CSEPP’s pull with both federal funding and the Oregon Department of
Transportation. He said work will soon begin on state highways through Hermiston.
Several quirky intersections, such as 11th Street and Hermiston Avenue, will
be fixed, he said.
“It’ll also make Elm street, a state highway truck route, a wider
and safer place to travel,” Sivey said. “The work being done is beneficial
to the city’s traffic flow.”
Another item that has wide-reaching benefit to residents are four
defibrillators bought by CSEPP for Hermiston’s ambulances.
“That’s the biggest everyday life thing we’ve seen,” in improvements,
Frazier said.
With a quick hookup to a cell phone or land line, the defibrillators
can send information about patients having chest pains to Good Shepherd Hospital.
Both paramedics on the scene and doctors at the hospital can immediately tell
what’s happening to the heart and where it is happening, saving both guesswork
and time to respond with the appropriate medicine, according to Paramedic
Rick Jones, who requested the equipment from CSEPP.
The equipment was important for CSEPP because those exposed to chemical
agent would have to go through a decontamination routine, eating up valuable
time that could be spent medically treating them. The defibrillators would
in that case provide needed information to medics who could then immediately
respond after decontamination was finished.
The risk of having such an exposure is low, but the equipment, at
a cost of $17,000 a piece, will not go to waste.
“We’ve been using them since May,” Jones said.
And all of the public safety work and equipment that CSEPP has helped
fund in the communities around the depot will remain when the U.S. Army completes
its destruction of the chemical weapons, Seigal said.
“All of the assets will stay here even after the job is done and
we go away,” she said.