Hermiston Herald
August 27, 2002

Army review confirms analysis

By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer

HERMISTON - An Army "review of the review" has confirmed SAICs conclusion
that the Army's risk analysis for chemical weapons stored at Umatilla
Chemical Depot is correct.

The state of Oregon had asked the Army to look at the independent analysis
of the UMCDF's Quantitative Risk Assessment Phase One, an unsolicited,
unfunded, brief study done by Texas risk analyst Jared Black, and the Army
had hired Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to do that.

Black was traveling in early August when SAIC had just completed their
review of Black's study, but Black had said he planned to read the SAIC
report after he returned in September.

In the meanwhile, the state hired Innovative Emergency Management (IEM) to
serve as an independent third party on the matter. IEM was asked to
summarize, both the points raised by Dr. Black and the response by SAIC, and
to assess the merits of the two positions.

IEM reported that they tried to summarize the various positions "as fairly
as possible without creating bias to one party or another."

All three, Black's analysis, SAIC's review, and IEM's review worked under
time and money constraints, however, so The QRA Phase 1 is lengthy by
comparison: SAIC was attempting to meet a deadline, IEM was asked to be
brief, and Black had worked unsolicited, free-of-charge.

Some of the highlights of the IEM conclusions were:

• The relative estimate of earthquakes near Umatilla and near Portland seems
  to have been addressed properly in the QRA Phase 1, (though the original
  source data was not independently reviewed).
  ·
• Black's work gives the likelihood of a mechanical failure, but IEM agrees
  with SAIC that it's not a good estimate of the risk from chemical agents
  because most mechanical failures do not release agent. (Black had said a
  mechanical failure at some point was highly likely.)
  
• Black had criticized the QRA for omitting details on the amount of agent
  that would have to be released to impact different communities.
  IEM agrees with SAIC's faith in the peer reviews that went along with QRA
  Phase 1 and says the missing details Black had noted will be included in QRA
  Phase 2.
  
• The Army's QRA Phase 1 did not address risks in detail because that was
  not the goal of the QRA, but the QRA did address risks in detail when they
  do lead to an agent release. "Those mechanical failure scenarios that result
  in agent releases to the environment were analyzed in detail," IEM
  concluded.