Voice of the Mid-Columbia
Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Washington

Depot rocket destruction delayed

Published Wednesday, September 27th, 2006

By Jeannine Koranda, Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON -- A glitch Tuesday in the emergency sirens surrounding the Umatilla Chemical Depot delayed the start of projectile destruction.

While preparing for a planned test of the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program's emergency sirens, officials noticed there was a problem with the signal that activates the system, explained Chris Brown, Oregon CSEPP manager.

Depot crews will wait until the sirens are working to move the GB sarin-filled 8-inch projectiles from their storage igloos to the incinerator, said depot spokesman Bruce Henrickson.

Because of the problem, Brown called off the sirens' monthly test. To help prevent confusion, Benton County and the Umatilla Chemical Depot also held off testing their systems.

CSEPP and Motorola technicians were in the field Tuesday transferring the activation signal to the same microwave system that runs Umatilla and Morrow counties' 450 megahertz tactical radio system, Brown said.

Brown said he hoped the new system would be running by today.

While Brown could have manually activated the sirens, he asked depot officials not to ship GB sarin 8-inch projectiles until the automated alerts are working.

Even without the sirens, there were other warning systems in place if an emergency had occurred, said Maureen Roxbury, spokeswoman for Morrow County Emergency Management.

The sirens and reader boards on highways are just two of five systems in place to warn people about an emergency.

The incinerator has completed the rest of its checklist to start the projectile destruction, Henrickson said.

He expected the first shipment of projectiles would arrive at the incinerator this morning and crews could start destroying the munitions after that. Each shift will initially destroy 10 projectiles, Henrickson said.

On Aug. 10, the incinerator destroyed the last of 91,442 M55 rockets filled with GB sarin nerve agent. Since then, crews have been modifying the facility to destroy the depot's cache of 61,652 projectiles.

The new process will use all three of the plant's incinerator furnaces.

When all the projectiles are destroyed, the facility will go through another changeover and convert to destroying munitions filled with VX nerve agent.