East Oregonian October 21, 2002

Depot lawsuit set to begin

By CARIE L. CALL of the East Oregonian
ccall@eastoregonian.com

HERMISTON - Environmentalists wanting to stop chemical weapons incineration at the
Umatilla Chemical Weapons facility in Umatilla will bring their case to trial in Portland
this week.

GASP, the Sierra Club, the Oregon Wildlife Federation and 22 additional single
petitioners have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the incineration of 3,717 tons of nerve and
mustard gas and other defunct weapons now being stored at the Army's Depot. The trial is
expected to begin Wednesday.

The lawsuit was filed in August 1997 against the Oregon Environmental Quality
Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality.

The U.S. Army and Washington Demilitarization Company, the subcontractor responsible
for building and maintaining the four Depot incinerators, are intervenors in the case.

Last week, the petitioners won a victory in the case when Multnomah County Circuit Judge
Michael Marcus ruled that they would be permitted to call their witnesses "expert
witnesses" during their testimony. The respondents had challenged the petitioner's four
witnesses.

"I spoke with the GASP lawyers this afternoon and was told that Judge Marcus did rule
in our favor on every count in the pretrial hearing," said Karyn Jones, of Hermiston, a lead
petitioner and member of GASP, which is not an acronym for anything. "It is quite a
victory. I hope it is a preview of what will come."

Mari Margil, of the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club in Portland, said the reason for the
lawsuit is that the health of the people and environment of Oregon is paramount to her.

"The DEQ has the responsibility for protecting the public health and environment. With
the Umatilla incinerator, it is failing on both counts," Margil said.

"We are calling upon the DEQ to revoke the Army's permit now, so we don't have to
continue with this costly and time-consuming litigation. There are alternative technologies,
being used elsewhere, which are safer and cheaper than incineration."

Margil, Jones and the others who filed the lawsuit contend that incineration puts deadly
toxins like dioxin, arsenic and lead into the environment, affecting public health and
Oregon's air and water quality.

The Army and Washington Demilitarization Company are doing soil, water and air tests at
the Depot to determine how much, if any, impact the Depot has had on the land, water, air
and wildlife.

They also are currently testing the incinerators by doing voluntary test burns. So far,
Incinerator One has not passed muster and is releasing higher than normal levels of metals
and toxins in the air. The Army is not burning actual agent during the tests, but instead is
using other hazardous wastes, such as dry cleaning solution with added metals such as
thallium.

In light of the incinerator's failure, the Army has suspended tests while they investigate the
issue and make necessary improvements to the system.

Wayne Thomas, of the DEQ office in Hermiston, has said he believes the Army and its
subcontractors are doing everything possible to rectify the situation.

When testing of the incinerators is complete, the Army plans to burn the agent and
weapons at very high temperatures. Emissions from the smoke stack will be processed
through special scrubbers and charcoal air filters that are expected to catch almost 100
percent of the toxins in the emissions, the Army has said.

Test burns could resume in December at the Depot and actual agent burns are scheduled to
take place next year.

Meanwhile, the environmental groups are hoping to stop the process and are instead
pushing alternative methods of weapons destruction. The Sierra Club plans to hold a press
conference at their Portland offices Tuesday to announce and discuss the impending trial,
Margil said.