Commentaries

Ray Grace: To burn, or not to burn before your community is ready, that is the real question

01/08/04

T here appears to be two opinions on when to destroy the chemical weapons at the Umatilla Chemical Depot near Hermiston in Northeastern Oregon. There also appears to be a lot of understandable confusion in the public arena as to why there is a debate at all.

One opinion is that the decades-old weapons at the depot are dangerous, and therefore the quicker they are destroyed, the better. Period, end of discussion, no questions please!

The second opinion is that these deteriorating weapons are indeed dangerous and getting more so all the time; however, commencing the destruction of these weapons without certain public safety precautions in place is even more dangerous and poses additional risk to the surrounding community.

The CSEPP (federal emergency preparedness program) budget discussion recently in the news is essentially a debate between these two positions, because reality suggests it now comes down to who controls resources that could make a difference in the outcome of your safety if you live in the Immediate Response Zone (IRZ), and were told to evacuate.

Before the public can decide whether to burn now or hold out until additional enhancements are in place and safety is considered sufficient, people need to know a little something about the history behind this debate. An informed electorate being necessary to good decision making, here is the situation as I have found it and feel compelled to share with you.

In October of 1987, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Department of the Army (Army) and FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In that MOU, and other named documents (Public Law 99-145, Executive Order 12148, Public Law 93-288, etc.) FEMA agreed to assume total authority, responsibility and accountability for working with State and local governments to "develop off-post emergency preparedness" and "take the lead in supporting State and local government development of off-post emergency preparedness plans, upgrading community response capabilities, and conducting necessary training", among other things. My point, FEMA is not a benefactor, FEMA is charged with providing for the public safety program necessary to protect those communities that surround the nation's chemical depots. For background purposes, FEMA is also the federal agency who controls and directs distribution of the available resources dedicated for CSEPP.

Here is the situation we find ourselves faced with as the debate continues on when to start agent incineration. Oregon CSEPP submitted a requirements based budget to FEMA back in September for Fiscal Year 2004 with a total of $12.9 million. FEMA notified Oregon in November that it would only receive $5.6 million (an amount that would barely cover base operating costs and would have severely limited the ability to continue justified requirements for emergency preparedness), while they continued to look at the program nationally to see if any "shortfall" funding could be found. This, while they told us to "prioritize" our existing budget requirements with the initial amount requested. However, following a letter from the governor requesting the full award amount andwith congressional delegation support or pressure, FEMA did find an additional $4.1 million and so notified Oregon on Dec. 17. But what was not funded was $3 million for Phase 2 of the ongoing evacuation project, which primarily impacts over 15,000 people in the largest city in the IRZ (Hermiston).

Here's what you may not know: FEMA's own written planning guidance for a community protective action strategy calls for a "balanced approach" -- meaning you don't necessarily rely solely on shelter in place, but time permitting should consider evacuation as a viable option. Further, FEMA has been privy to and participated in the ongoing evacuation planning here for nearly three years. They took locally generated modeling data approved by the Oregon Department of Transportation and ran it to one of their own contractor laboratories for additional study, then finally funded $1.5 million for Phase 1 of the evacuation project, which linked traffic signals to the Hermiston Safety Center and cameras to key intersections, all which will contribute to being able to evacuate should that be a necessary option for citizen protection in case of an accident at the depot. It was also at FEMA's request that the community broke down the total estimated costs for evacuation improvements into three Phases to be submitted in different budget years, suggesting it would then be easier to find the total funding. Finally, FEMA (our federal partner responsible for "off-post" preparedness) was told from the start by the community -- don't start this project at all, unless you are committed to see it through to completion. Phase One is now complete and engineering work already completed to begin Phase Two, when suddenly we are told there is now no funding to continue. Instead FEMA is suggesting the current work doesn't "prove the risk reduction factor" (a new FEMA/CSEPP terminology) and has announced, unknown to the local community, they have contracted an outside study to look at viable options. For those who suggest we have the luxury of time to do so, and believe that future funding may become available for Oregon CSEPP evacuation planning/work -- back in November 2003, FEMA's own Fiscal Year 2005 shortfall estimates had already exceeded $46 million nationally and will only continue to grow with new requirements -- you'll find no guarantees or promises there. Please remember, incineration is presently scheduled to commence in Umatilla in July of 2004.

So I take exception when I read that funding of this community's emergency protection program is not as important as relationships. Evacuation was considered and endorsed by the CSEPP Governing Board, the governor's office, the governor's Executive Review Panel and Oregon's congressional delegation, as needed to enhance public safety. FEMA itself evaluated and approved the evacuation plan to the point of funding Phase 1. But evacuation isn't currently funded for continuance, and to willingly roll over and suggest we shouldn't worry about it in deference to "running a serious risk of jeopardizing valuable relationships" is unconscionable in my estimation.

Recently the Morrow County Court was called "irresponsible" by some, and the innuendo was that we were not "fiscally responsible" because we considered public safety to be more important than humbly accepting FEMA's initial fiscal award for Oregon CSEPP. Personally, I am comfortable being labeled, if it means never having to explain to a grieving family or community why I did not work harder to secure public safety.

Finally, gratitude? That's not the first thought that comes to mind when you examine the facts in this important public safety issue that primarily affects our IRZ citizens and those non-residents who couldn't find shelter in place and would have to consider evacuation, planned or not. Instead, I am deeply disturbed while continuing to struggle with this question: Why should some federal agency in Washington, D.C., with no stake in the outcome, be able to say no to an existing community project such as evacuation and those enhancements needed for our citizen's safety? And, by the way, I don't care whose feelings get hurt.

Ray Grace is a Morrow County commissioner.