East Oregonian
Saturday, December 14, 2002

Activists react to Depot incident

By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press

A coalition of groups opposed to the Army's plans to incinerate nearly 4,000 tons of chemical weapons at the Umatilla Chemical Depot said Friday a recent accident at the Depot was proof of deep-rooted problems.

A laboratory technician at the Army's Umatilla Chemical Depot dropped several glass vials containing the deadly nerve agent GB sarin, which shattered on the lab floor, an Army spokesman said.

Nobody was hurt in the accident Dec. 2, but lab workers quickly donned gas masks and then took showers after leaving the laboratory as a precaution, said Army spokesman Jim Hackett.

"It's diluted enough that you would not normally have an exposure from it," he said Thursday. "We would say that's a minor lab incident."

"I think this is just another example of the cavalier attitude that the Army and its subcontractors share in dealing with deadly chemical weapons," said Bob Palzer, chairman of the national Chemical Weapons Task Force and a member of The Sierra Club. "The whole system needs to be changed - the management structure, the permitting process."

Hackett said the incident had been exaggerated and posed no threat to depot workers, nearby communities or the environment.

"Whatever happens here has a tendency to be blown out of proportion," he said. "If water runs downhill at the depot, it becomes a major event. We pride ourselves on our safety and security."

The Army followed proper procedures during the Dec. 2 accident and regulators will not issue a notice of noncompliance, said Sue Oliver, interim project director for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The sarin was diluted about 500 to 1 in rubbing alcohol, and remained in a liquid form after the spill.

Three employees in the lab put on gas masks and began dousing the floor with water and bleach to further dilute the nerve agent, which was being used in a laboratory sample, Hackett said.

Medics took blood samples from the three laboratory workers, Hackett said, and no agent was detected in those samples. Sensors in the one-story, prefabricated metal lab building also detected no agent, he said.

The Army stores Cold War-era chemical weapons at Umatilla Depot in earth-covered bunkers.

Under an international treaty, the U.S. must destroy all its chemical stockpile by 2012.

The Army is testing incinerators now and hopes to begin burning the chemical agents next year.

The Sierra Club, the Oregon Wildlife Federation and a Hermiston-based grassroots group called GASP have sued the state Department of Environmental Quality, saying it was wrong to issue a chemical weapons incineration permit to the Army.