East Oregonian
Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Test burns to restart at Depot

By CARIE L. CALL of the East Oregonian

UMATILLA - The Army is preparing to relaunch mini-trial burns on incinerator one at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

The incinerator was shut down Sept. 26 after failing two voluntary test burns. During the tests, heavy metals injected into hazardous waste were incinerated at high temperatures to simulate nerve and mustard gas that later will be burned at the site.

The incinerator failed when an excessive amount of heavy metals - mostly lead and chromium - escaped into the air during the tests. The incinerator was shut down and the Army and the Washington Demilitarization Company, which is in charge of building and maintaining the four Umatilla Depot incinerators, have since made modifications and improvements to the incinerator, said Mary Binder, spokeswoman for the Army.

Binder said Tuesday that two voluntary mini burns now are scheduled to take place in December.

Surrogate test burns, which are part of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's permitting process and must be successfully completed before actual agent burns begin, are scheduled to take place in late January. During surrogate burns, a larger amount of hazardous waste will be fed into the incinerators, simulating actual burning of nerve and mustard agent.

Binder assured the public that surrogate burns will not take place at the Depot until the incinerators pass the mini-trial burns.

"We would not do surrogate burns without the success of the mini-trial burns," Binder said.

Under an international peace treaty, the U.S. must destroy all 3,717 tons of chemical weapons being stored at the Umatilla Depot by 2012. The Army estimates it will take about 70 months to destroy the chemical agent currently being stored at Umatilla. Defunct weapons such as rockets and mines and other ancillary materials also must be destroyed before the Army leaves the site.

During incineration at Umatilla, mustard and nerve agent will be destroyed at very high temperatures. No agent is supposed to be released into the air and emissions are supposed to be cleaned almost 100 percent by charcoal filters.

Before the weapons are destroyed, the four incinerators must pass a series of DEQ tests, including ensuring that heavy metals do not escape into the air during test burns.

Meanwhile, GASP and several other environmental groups including the Sierra Club, have filed a request to revoke the Army's incineration permit. The Portland hearing before Circuit Judge Michael Marcus lasted for several weeks. On Nov. 27, because of schedule conflicts, the judge continued the hearings until March. A hearing will be held Monday in the case to address two motions filed by WDC and the Army, Binder said.

Another public hearing will be held at 7 tonight in the conference rooms at Good Shepherd Medical Center to talk about the Army's Brine Reduction Unit. The unit will be used to process wastewater used during the incineration process. Wastewater will be reduced to a salt-like solution and buried in the Arlington landfill, according to the DEQ permit. The public can comment on the process tonight.

For more information on any of these issues or public meetings, contact the Depot's Outreach Office on Main Street in Hermiston at 564-9339.