HERMISTON — An official with the U.S. government assured local officials that it won't cut the CSEPP budget.

But it does want CSEPP to make cuts.

Dale Ormond spoke Thursday to officials with CSEPP, Oregon Emergency Management, and local counties and cities to reassure them that the Army wasn't pulling the plug on funding yet.

Ormond is the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for its Elimination of Chemical Weapons program.

Ormond suggested the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program community look at their programs to determine if anything could be cut once the more dangerous chemicals GB and VX are incinerated.

"We have a legal obligation to this community to protect these communities," Ormond said. "We have dual responsibilities -- to fund capability budget items that are required to maintain benchmark status, and to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars."

The concern of the off-post community is that as long as there are chemical weapons on the depot, there is a risk to the community. With the end of the GB sarin campaign nearing, perhaps by Christmas, a recent risk management analysis revealed the storage risk at the depot has been reduced by 92 percent. According to the draft analysis, disposal so far of the GB sarin rockets and ton containers has reduced the disposal risk overall by 59 percent.

"The risk remains," said Morrow County Judge Terry Tallman. "We don't want the risk level to overshadow the benchmark."

Tallman and fellow commissioners Ray Grace and John Wenholz all feel the risk is still there, regardless of what chemical weapons are left on the Umatilla Chemical Depot, even mustard, which will not make it off the depot as easily as the others. It would take a catastrophic event such as an explosion to allow mustard to get into the atmosphere and make it off the depot. The likelihood of that happening would be small, according to Martha Doherty, Morrow County CSEPP.

"If there's still a chance, we need to continue protection," said Tallman. "Even one death, no matter how it happens, is unacceptable."