Hermiston Herald October 16, 2001

Impact aid study by feds rejected by area officials

By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer

Umatilla and Morrow County officials have rejected the results of a federal study on impact aid. They plan to continue to seek federal recompense in spite of government strategies which, they say, slanted the outcome in order to avoid payment.

The Institute for Defense Analyses study (Assessment of the Need for Assistance to Communities Affected by Chemical Demilitarization: Final Report) dismissed bi-county concerns as "beyond the scope of the study," and dampened hopes for federal impact aid associated with Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

Roads, bridges and interchanges, congested overpasses, and evacuation options, were not factored into the economic impacts on communities. Neither were the inability to attract and retain business investments. The news staggered some commissioners, who said they had believed assurances from their congressional delegation that the government would eventually pay.

Alleged Bias

Some were disappointed, but not totally surprised. "The Institute for Defense Analyses is a consultant company made up by retired, high level military people, generals ... with serious clout behind them," said Umatilla County Commissioner Dennis Doherty. "All of the depot sites were alarmed that the Department of Defense was going to be in charge of the study," he added.

Present for Thursday's meeting at Hermiston City Hall were the three Morrow County commissioners, Umatilla Commissioner Dennis Doherty, Morrow County Planner Tamra Mabbott, local mayors George Hash and Bob Severson, Casey Beard of Morrow County CSEPP, Gilleese and others.

Putting DOD in charge "set them (DOD) in position to essentially set parameters that might produce an outcome that they wanted," Doherty said. "Every site complained to their congressional delegation."

Taxation "Unfairness"

What upsets him most, Doherty said, is "the unfairness factor." With the present tax system, the Oregon Department of Revenue and IRS will be enriched with income taxes from chemical demilitarization employees, while the opposite is true for local governments.
Oregon state and federal governments rely on income taxes to fund their programs and services, while county and local governments depend on property taxes, he explained. The incineration project produces "a huge income tax return to both state and federal government," he said, but "it is producing no property taxes whatsoever to the local government."

Boon or Bane?

Since 1995 the two counties and a number of small cities in the area have sought federal monetary relief for hosting the Umatilla Chemical Weapons Disposal Facility (UMCDF), which will destroy 3,700 tons of chemical weapons, including deadly Sarin nerve gas and mustard agent which is stored here by the Army.

Local officials claim the federal projects will provoke another disruptive boom/bust cycle, as have government projects of the past. Itinerant depot, incinerator and construction workers will leave, and permanent residents must pay long-term infrastructure costs initiated because of Army and UMCDF activities.

The government study concluded differently, predicting that the Umatilla incinerators will add $3.5 million to the economies of "core" counties, $4.7 million to the region, and $97 million to the state during a 35-year "window," of time.

But if the Department of Defense study is wrong, and population goes down instead of up, the counties will face a dilemma.
Even if population remains steady or goes up, tax limitations, imposed in recent years by Oregon State law, make it illegal to raise the money in ways that were done in the past. Umatilla County has had to cut staff, even during the UMCDF construction project and several other major expansions.

Incinerator employees are among the highest paid workers in the area. But a number of them commute from Washington. They pay no Oregon property taxes. And concerning those who do reside here, Commissioners worry about what happens when incineration is complete, and a large number of the more affluent taxpayers and property owners move away. Will asparagus pickers and rye-pullers be able to pay the infrastructure costs those incineration employees incurred to the county?

Commissioners here say the federal government limited the study to asking the wrong questions, and because of that the report will give Congress a false impression - and one that will harm Umatilla and Morrow county residents.

Workers Already Leaving

Will workers stay, find other jobs, and keep spending money here as the federal government predicts? Already they are reported to be leaving. Umatilla Mayor George Hash said that construction workers have moved away since the construction was finished at the incinerator. As a result, tavern owners claim they are languishing, he said. "This a very unscientific type of measure, but those same people that came in during the construction are no longer going around to the taverns,"said Hash.

County officials agreed the study was a "whitewash job" which ignored local input, one with no references to Morrow County's white papers and comments, or Umatilla County's HUES Impact Study.
Local objections notwith-standing, the federal government's analysis may be difficult to refute. Analysts interviewed some 250 people.

"They are in a perfect position to say, 'We went out there and ... nobody was shut out of the process,'" Doherty admitted.
Whether the study is right or wrong, "We have just been boxed," Doherty commented. And Morrow Commissioner Terry Tallman commented, "It will take a tremendous amount of momentum to overcome the damage that the study has done."

His confidence shaken, Tallman told his colleagues, "I have really thought at times that we would get impact aid. I really believed that we would. But I'm not so certain any more. We just don't have the same leverage that we thought we had earlier." The group now plans to seek public opinion, create a citizens committee, try to determine which elected officials or candidates are willing to take on impact aid as a serious project, and determine a new course of action.

Said Doherty, "We have been working, apparently, on the wrong principal, that is, 'We will work with you, we expect you to work with us.'"