Hermiston Herald
October 30, 2001

Army may be rethinking its storage of mustard

By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer

HERMISTON. Will the terrorist threat change the Armys perception of a "worst-case scenario" at Umatilla Chemical Depot? Already it is making them rethink their choice of chemical storage issues.

Although heightened security measures have been in place since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Army, for some time, has been revising its risk analysis for the Umatilla Chemical Depot and other chemical demolition sites.

A Umatilla Chemical Depot spokesman was noncommittal Monday about reports that the Army is considering moving Umatilla's 2,635 containers of mustard agent to igloos for safer storage."I can't respond to specific questions due to security issues. All I can say is that a range of options is being considered for increased security measures," said Jim Hackett, public information officer for the depot.

Even though mustard agent is stored in sheds, not igloos, the percent of the total risk attributed to mustard is relatively small (5 percent for processing, less than 1 percent for storage.). Many sites have stored mustard outdoors. Mustard congeals easily in cool temperatures and is solid or a dense liquid for much of the year. By contrast, for both storage and incineration, an estimated 80 percent of public risk is associated with GB nerve agent.

Assumed worst-case scenarios for Umatilla Chemical Depot and the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility were described in the Quantitative Risk Assessment of September 1996 and in the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement's risk assessment of 1987 (revised 1994), but those studies included accidental events over sites that probably would not be targeted by terrorists.

For example, they do attempt to account for potentially higher risks associated with symbolically or strategically important sites. The studies assume a human intent to avoid accidents, although the "human reliability factor" may result in a "failure" or error contributing to a catastrophe. In the Quantitative Risk Assessment, "No human failure events were considered to be malicious." The accidental risk due to the potential for a crash from a large aircraft was determined by looking at how many airplanes had crashed in the past.

Although the risk analyses do not include terrorism, they do cover a large scale catastrophe such as a terrorist commanded plane might inflict. The "largest credible accidents" in the revised Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) were: (1) the crash of a large aircraft into a storage igloo containing VX (agent) spray tanks or GB (agent) rockets, followed by fire or, (2) an earthquake or air crash that damages the mustard agent warehouse, followed by a fire.

In such an event, the "no-deaths distances" might be 62 miles (or 12 miles for a VX accident), according to Army documents. The fatalities could be as many as 10,300, according to the FEIS. That number assumes worst weather conditions, and a wind blowing toward Umatilla, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington.

The study arrived at the 10,300 "estimated deaths" using figures from the 1990 Census, when Hermiston population was only 10,040, Umatilla was 3,046, and Irrigon was 737. Since then the population in those cities has gone up by 6,218 people. More people live here now than was predicted. Morrow County's predicted population for the year 2000 was of 8,596. Instead, today Morrow's population is an estimated 11,100, which is 2,504 more.

Likewise, for Umatilla County, they projected the 2000 population would be 66,056. Today that population is estimated at 70,850, according to Population Center figures. That is 4, 794 additional people.

And a disproportionate amount of that bi-county growth occurred in the vicinity of the depot, as opposed to east Umatilla County. The FEIS is presently being revised, but the new book is not yet out. Perhaps the new version will arrive at different conclusions about the potential deaths in worst case scenario.

Also noted in the original studies, if young and old persons are more subject to risk than the healthy adult males, fatalities could be higher than the above estimates. About 37 percent of the population was estimated to be over 65 or under 15 years of age. If those old and young people were five to ten times more sensitive to agent than healthy adults, overall fatalities would be a little over twice as high as the estimates, the Army reported.

On the positive side, though the FEIS assumed "no preparation" of the community, such as training in how to shelter in place, such training has been going on for several years, and kits have been distributed for use by those living near the depot, if such an event ever occurred. Included as credible threats were such things as earthquakes, tornadoes, lightning, operator error, and accidental plane crashes. Some depot watchers may now be watching for figures for the young and old, and on terrorism as a separate credible threat.

Will the risk of an accidental airplane crash be weighted differently than that of an intentional crash? And if so, how will the Army arrive at those numbers.