The Oregonian
Letters to the Editor

September 9, 2004

Dear Editor,
    
Praising the Army for it's 'abrupt work stoppage' as they tried to burn the first rocket at Umatilla is ludicrous ('Easy Does it at Umatilla'--editorial,The Oregonian 9 September). Let's get it straight--the Army didn't decide to stop operations for safety reasons, a malfunction stopped operations. After almost eight years of construction, testing, tweaking and reassurances that everything was ready to go, the process was stopped on the first day, and the Army had no choice in the matter.
    
It is equally ridiculous to praise the Army for its public disclosure of the failure. Fact is, the Army had called together a roomful of reporters to witness this 'historic day.'and there was no way the Army could have kept the event private. Again, the Army had no choice in the matter.
    
So why applaud the Army for decisions they didn't make?  It seems that because the Oregonian editorial board has historically endorsed the Army's misguided and reckless incineration decision, the board had to do what it could to weave a silk purse out of a pig's ear when the first day of operations turned into such an embarrassment.
    
The Umatilla incineration scene is dark comedy at its best--you couldn't make up a more instructive and revealing first act than a shut-down at start-up.
    
Army officials say that a BIG RED emergency button was inadvertently pushed by a worker the night before. It took incineration managers four and a half hours to figure out that a button was pushed by mistake. How is that possible?  How can a multi-billion dollar 'state-of-the-art' facility not have the capability to indicate when an emergency stop button has been pushed? C'mon.
    
If they can't figure out an extraordinarily simple mechanical failure in less than four and a half hours how can we trust them to be capable of figuring out glitches in the facility's many extraordinarily complex systems? What's a big red button compared to a complicated Pollution Abatement System which is supposed to clean exhaust gases before being released into the environment?
    
One must wonder how enthusiastic the editorial board would be about burning these weapons if the incinerator were located just outside Portland instead of 180 miles away.  If the incinerator were in their back yard, perhaps they would take this issue more seriously and stop feeding their readers glib reassurances by giving the Army undeserved pats on the back.