By Karen Hutchinson-Talaski
Staff writer

PORTLAND-- A judge in Multnomah County ruled against GASP and other environmental groups in their lawsuit, dubbed GASP I, to revoke the Army's permit to incinerate chemical weapons at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

However, Judge Michael Marcus ordered the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) to "determine that the facility will employ ‘the best available technology' for disposal of the agents and munitions" at UMCDF.

According to Greg Mahall, spokesperson for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, the decision does not shut operations down at Umatilla. He believes the reason for the ruling is due to the fact that ton containers being incinerated at Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Utah found a "less than desirable amount" of mercury in their stockpile of ton containers of mustard.

"The incinerator is designed to handle the organic phosphates of the agent, not heavy metals," Mahall said. "We didn't expect this."

While not exactly a victory for GASP, the order from Judge Marcus gives the group hope that since higher concentrations of mercury have been found in mustard ton containers in Utah, the Army will reassess the incineration process.

"Incineration does not and cannot destroy mercury, but simply disperses mercury, a toxic and persistent poison, into the environment," said attorney Mick Harrison, lead counsel for GASP, the Sierra Club, Oregon Wildlife Federation and other individual petitioners.

Some of the stockpile of ton containers at Umatilla came from the same stockpile at Tooele, although Umatilla only has about 2,300 tons of mustard stored in 2,600 containers on the Umatilla Chemical Depot. The Army believes the ton containers held something else before mustard was put into them as heavy metals such as mercury is not part of mustard.

"We are working on ways to percolate the mercury out of the mustard," Mahall said. "Tooele is doing a sampling program and setting aside the ones with mercury present to destroy (later)."

Karen Hutchinson-Talaski can be reached at ktalaski@hermistonherald.com.