LATEST NEWS
Tuesday, September
07, 2004
Long wait may
end Wednesday
By the East Oregonian
eonews@eastoregonian.com
HERMISTON — Testing is
complete, officials at the Umatilla Chemical Depot announced this morning,
and chemical weapons handlers are expected to move one pallet of rockets
from a storage igloo to the disposal faciltiy this afternoon.
The workers will use a specially designed steel container on a flatbed
truck to move the rockets. Afterward, depot and disposal facility officials
will evaluate the process to ensure they are ready for the next step — running
it through the incineration process.
Plans are to punch, drain and shear one rocket from the pallet of
15 Wednesday morning. The rocket pieces will be burned in the facility’s
deactivation furnace. The drained chemical agent will be stored in a holding
tank. In about a month, officials estimate they will have enough drained
agent to destroy it in one of the facility’s two liquid incinerators.
During final testing in mid-August, depot officials postponed startup
activities when several issues arose. The most significant occurred during
the second liquid incinerator’s trial burn of industrial chemicals, which
act as surrogates for actual chemical weapons, when trace amounts of surrogate
vapor were detected in the plant’s ventilation system. Officials wanted to
understand what the readings meant and to ensure the ventilation system’s
integrity. Those questions have been resolved and officials are confident
the facility is ready for a deliberate, step-by-step start-up process, officials
said.
“Besides completing other activities during the past three weeks,
we have thoroughly reviewed our facility’s ventilation systems,” said Don
Barclay, Army site project manager. “The monitor readings raised questions
we wanted to answer. We’ve done that.”
He said the ventilation system’s charcoal filter beds were replaced
and the system, and others like it, was retested.
“We’ve consulted with counterparts at our sister disposal sites and
had independent analysis completed,” Barclay said. “I am confident that the
readings we initially questioned are normal for such systems when measuring
at very low levels — one part in a billion, for example. We are measuring
molecules. Even though what we were seeing would not be harmful to our workers,
the public or the environment, our philosophy when we have such questions
is to stop, evaluate and seek resolution before proceeding. So, that’s what
we did.”
Depot Commander Lt. Col. Doc Holliday stressed that while people
are anxious for incineration to start, the primary concerns are “safety,
security and complying with our permit. We are not on a production schedule.”
He said maximizing protection “for those who work and live here,
the general public and, ultimately, the environment have been and will continue
to be at the forefront of what we do.”
The depot will provide regular updates on disposal operations. A
toll-free number, 1-888-866-5928, will be updated daily. The Umatilla Chemical
Disposal Outreach Office, 190 E. Main Street, is another source for information.
It is open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays–Fridays. The phone number is 564-9339.
For more information, call the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness
Program (CSEPP) at 800-841-7953 or on the Internet, www.csepp.net.