LATEST NEWS
Friday,
September 17, 2004
Advisory group
updated on depot mishap
By AMYJO BROWN
of the East Oregonian
ajbrown@eastoregonian.com
HERMISTON — The path two
workers took into a contaminated room earlier this week at the Umatilla Chemical
Depot was one they had taken many times before the room was dangerous, according
to Doug Hamrick, site project manager for the Washington Demilitarization
Company.
Hamrick reported Thursday at a monthly Citizens’ Advisory Commission
meeting that depot officials were still investigating the incident but that
they now had a clearer understanding as to why the unidentified workers took
a wrong turn Tuesday into the “Toxic Cubicle Room.”
“To a certain extent, we conditioned them to go through the wrong
door,” Hamrick said. “We changed the route once operations began, but it
was in their mind.”
The room was a shortcut to the area the workers were headed for to
conduct maintenance work. It contains tanks storing about 11 gallons of sarin
drained from World War II era M55 rockets over the past week. (Sarin is a
clear, colorless liquid that can be fatal if inhaled or touched.) Although
the tanks were sealed and the room ventilated, monitors picked up low levels
of chemical agent inside the room.
The workers had some protective gear on, which was enough to protect
them from the agent, Hamrick said. But that won’t typically be the case.
The room is designed and will handle much higher levels of chemical agent
vapors.
“It was just luck” that the mistake was made when it was — if it
had to be made at all, Hamrick said, adding “we have to prevent this from
happening again.”
While the workers are OK and still at work, the incident caused enough
concern with depot officials and state regulators that they temporarily halted
operations at the depot until they can ensure the same mistake doesn’t happen
twice.
Corrective actions have been taken, Hamrick said.
All personnel at the depot are being briefed, in detail, about the
event, as well as other lessons learned over the past week’s operations.
The procedure for the lower level entries into areas of potential contamination
from chemical agent have been made more strict. And employees are changing
the way they communicate, using markings on the doors to give more detailed
descriptions of the rooms they are about to enter to operators monitoring
their entries.
Dennis Murphey, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality program
administrator for its chemical demilitarization program, said that although
he was unhappy about the workers’ mistake, he was glad depot officials paused
operations while investigating the incident.
Robert Flournoy, chair of the CAC, thanked Hamrick for his candor
about the event.