Tri-City Herald
December 20, 2002

Depot questions, concerns answered at public meeting

By Karen Spears Zacharias
Herald Oregon Bureau

HERMISTON - One meeting was all it took for Irrigon resident Darrell Gale to feel a lot more comfortable about how the Army is handling the chemical munitions stockpile at the Umatilla Chemical Depot. "I didn't know if I was catching everything I was reading. I feel better after hearing this stuff myself," Gale said.

Gale was one of several community members who showed up Thursday at the Citizens Advisory Commission meeting at Hermiston's Good Shepherd Medical Center. Bob Flournoy, commission chairman, urged the public to attend the meeting following recent mishaps at the depot, including a guard who shot himself in the hand and 13 highly diluted sarin vials that were dropped and broken.

Flournoy said he was glad at the turnout. Irrigon resident Judy Brown said she would return for future meetings. But there were more jabs at the press coverage over the mishaps than at depot officials.

Umatilla County Commissioner Dennis Doherty said articles in the newspaper over a depot lab worker who dropped 13 vials of highly diluted sarin created "unnecessary alarm." And Frank Harkenrider, former mayor of Hermiston, said the incident didn't deserve any press coverage.

Depot Commander Fred Pellissier said news is often generated because he maintains an open door policy to report all incidents at the depot - good or bad. "I'm not going to cover anything up," Pellissier said. But he told the crowd he shared their concerns about safety.

"We've had a couple things occur over the past couple of months that might cause you to question is the stockpile safe? I assure you it is," he said. "We took extreme measures to protect the workers." Pellissier said he wished he could promise such incidents would never happen again, but "there's that human factor." Rest assured, he added, "We are learning from our mistakes.