OPINION

7/30/2008 7:45:00 am

Letter: Comments were a little incomplete

I thought it was 1996 when I opened the East Oregonian recently and saw the activists are still trying to scare us into believing neutralization is better than incineration when it comes to getting rid of Umatilla chemical weapons.

Mr. Condit neglects to mention that the Army has already safely destroyed hundreds of tons of mustard agent by incineration. He also doesn't say anything about the big blowup in Indiana over what to do with all the waste created by neutralization of chemical weapons. He doesn't mention that Maryland's neutralized mustard waste ended up in Chesapeake Bay, and Indiana's neutralized waste got incinerated in Texas.

He doesn't mention the years of delay and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars it would take to switch from incineration to neutralization at Umatilla. He did mention the charcoal filters on the Umatilla incinerators. Except he left out the part about how great they work in capturing mercury and cleaning air emissions.

It may be OK for a lawyer from who-knows-where like Mr. Condit to have chemicals hanging around Hermiston for another five or 10 years so we can switch to a new technology, but I have a suggestion for him: Why don't we send our mustard agent to you, and you can keep it in your backyard until you convince somebody your idea is a good one.

Good luck on that. I've been a real booster of the Umatilla Army Depot since 1941. We've had very good people running the depot and let's let them get the job done without more delay.

Frank J. Harkenrider Hermiston