Hermiston Herald
November 12, 2002

Depot opponents pin hopes on ex-researcher

By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer

HERMISTON - Opponents of chemical weapons incineration are hoping Gary Harris and other witnesses will help them bring the Army, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Environmental Quality Commission, and Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility to their knees.

Harris has become better known through his own testimony in Multnomah last Month.
Harris, who testified in Portland on Oct. 24-25 in the lawsuit intended to stop incineration, was a paramedic in 1984 at Fort Carson, Colo., and later became an environmental researcher and filled other positions in the Army's chemical demilitarization programs. He eventually ended up at Tooele Chemical Disposal Facility (TOCDF) in Utah, working in a position referred to in court as "the in-house guy who is the head of dealing with the regulatory needs of the contractor."

"It was my responsibility operating a department of five technicians and seven environmental engineers to ensure that the permit accurately reflected the facility as it was built, and also to represent the facility as it would be operated," he testified. He left that position in 1996.
Interestingly, the Army's contractor, Battelle, hired him to oversee environmental issues despite his questionable degree in environmental sciences. Harris testified that he did his first year of bachelor's work with Penn State University and maintained a 3.8 average, but finished up with Columbia University and received a bachelor's degree in environmental science, then continued an advanced degree in environmental science.

"There are many people who say that Columbia State University was a - what is that term - a paper house. They just gave (degrees) away for nothing. But I know that I did the work," Harris testified, "So I will not claim either one of those degrees, but I will claim that I'm very knowledgeable in the work that I did."

The university, which was in Louisiana, was shut down by a federal injunction as "a diploma mill with fake diplomas," the attorney for Washington Demilitarization Company told the court in an attempt to block part of Harris' testimony.

The opposing attorney, Mick Harrison, argued that Harris was qualified to draw inferences on a certain part of the facility called the "brine reduction area" because Harris wrote the permits and modifications in question, worked closely with the engineers, was put in a position of authority by the contractor recognized by the Army, knew what the problems with the facility were, observed them, knew what the efforts to fix those problems were, and saw what the Army and its contractors did later in their decision to abandon the part of the facility that was in question.

Under cross examination, Harris was also questioned about his work history. After leaving EG&G in 1996, Harris applied for and tried a number of jobs and was not gainfully employed, he said, but sold his farm in Utah in order to live and pay certain medical expenses. He lived Santa Fe, New Mexico for a year, and moved to Oregon in 2000.

Under cross examination, Harris testified he had worked as a paramedic until 1991, when he worked for the Battelle Memorial Institute, a defense contractor at the Tooele facility, as an environmental researcher but he became an environmental supervisor there within two years, and often reported directly to the company SAIC, which was said to be an agent of the Army. In about 1993 he went to work for EG&G.

Harris got national attention in January 2000, when he alleged officials at the Army's chemical weapons incinerator in Tooele falsified tests and records to hide safety problems.