East Oregonian
EO EDITORIALS
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Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Depot officials should know trust is difficult to gain and easy to lose

Public trust is a fickle thing. It takes a lot to earn it and very little to lose it. Army officials at the Umatilla Chemical Depot and with Washington Demilitarization Co. risked a lot by allowing monitoring devices to be turned off during test burns at the chemical weapons incinerator site.

Officials from Oregon DEQ are upset that the Army and managers at the incinerator allowed employees to turn off alarms that measure the rate of material being fed into the burner. DEQ agrees that workers did not intentionally violate the permit allowing burning, but claim that workers were poorly trained about the permit and the rules that apply. The violation was revealed in an internal Army report released last week.

The chemicals used in the test burns are not part of the chemical weapon stockpile stored at the Depot. "Surrogate" material is used to test if the furnaces work properly and if all the material is safely destroyed. Once the bugs are worked out of the system, incineration of the 3,717 tons of chemical agent will take place. The Army hopes to begin incinerating the weapons next fall.

For years, we have supported the incineration process, believing it is the safest way to quickly get rid of the deadly chemicals stored at the Depot. And, except for a few bumps in the road, the Army has been a good neighbor. But when it comes to matters like this, where public safety is so critical, it doesn't take much to get people upset.

We learned a few years ago just how nasty it can get when the public loses trust concerning the handling of these weapons and the emergency preparedness program put in place to protect people in harm's way. A false alarm of the warning system, along with other failures, left a lot of people skeptical about the warning system. The good news is that the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program has made huge strides since then to rebuild public trust. But it wasn't easy.

Washington Demilitarization and the Army must take extraordinary measures to make sure errors such as turning off monitoring devices does not happen again. Most folks understand when mistakes are made, but not of this magnitude.

It's easy to be lulled into complacency when working with dangerous materials. Considering the safety measures built into the incinerator complex, it seems as if an accident would be nearly impossible. Of course, we know that's not true.

People living in the area obviously take the safe incineration of these weapons very seriously. Long after the incinerator is gone, these folks still will live here and expect the highest regard for their safety from the officials who are responsible. Keeping the public trust is of the highest priority. And it all can be lost with one careless move.