The Army is studying new ways to destroy stockpiles of chemical weapons that could include shipping weapons from depots in other states to incinerators in Oregon.

The idea of moving nerve gas and other agents is at an early stage and may never become an official Defense Department proposal. But it is drawing lots of attention -- much of it hostile -- because moving such weapons represents a big change to longstanding U.S. Army policy and would violate a 10-year-old federal law. Moving chemical weapons is inherently risky, and opponents worry those shipments would be attractive terrorist targets.

Some Oregon officials and activists said they would fight any effort to import weapons. But at least one state senator said he wanted to hear more information before ruling out the idea.

Two state permits now bar the Umatilla Chemical Depot, near Hermiston, from taking new chemical arms, said Dennis Murphey, who oversees Umatilla for Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality. Murphey said he would "vigorously recommend" against changing those import bans.

"I'm hoping that this is something that will go no further" than the idea stage, Murphey said.

Umatilla is the site of one of the nation's newer full-scale incinerators for burning chemical weapons, and the Army spent about a half-billion dollars to build it.

An obscure Dec. 21 budget memo from the Pentagon asked Army officials to "develop alternatives" to the current plan, which says each of the nation's eight chemical weapons depots should destroy its stockpile. Umatilla and depots in Utah and Alabama are running incinerators to destroy the weapons, while a Maryland facility is using chemical processes to destroy its stockpile. An Arkansas incinerator and an Indiana chemical-disposal facility are to open this year. A treaty requires the United States to destroy its chemical weapons by 2012.

The Army has until March 24 to send the Pentagon a list of alternatives, said Jeff Lindblad, a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency. He would not say which sites may be involved, but the Pentagon said the Army should consider ways to safeguard the weapons "including relocation if necessary among sites."

The federal law banning those relocations "can be changed by Congress," Lindblad said, "or by a presidential order that this is in the interests of national security."

Murphey said he did not know what happens, legally, if a presidential order goes against state regulations. The Army has a right to petition to amend the two DEQ permits that ban importing new chemical weapons to Umatilla, Murphey said. The Environmental Quality Commission would have to approve any change.

State Sen. David Nelson, R-Pendleton, said he takes the Pentagon's proposal seriously -- though he added it "is probably a trial balloon somebody floated out there to gauge public opinion."

Nelson cited the Army's investment in the Umatilla incineration plant and said it may be trying to see whether it can avoid more costs. He said his mind is open to such ideas, though whether weapons could safely be moved is a key question. Still, he said, "the benefit to Hermiston would be the continuation of several hundred jobs which are crucial to the local economy."

Nelson said changes might not come before the state Legislature. "But the state could have a voice if it put up enough protest or support."

That is exactly what longtime incinerator opponent Karyn Jones wants. The Hermiston resident said asking Umatilla to destroy more weapons would increase the amount of risk and pollution area residents face.

"It just infuriates me that they would even consider this," said Jones, a member of the chemical-weapons activist group GASP. "I think this is an extremely serious threat to Oregon, and I would hope that Governor Kulongoski would take the same sort of dramatic step that Governor McCall took."

In 1969, Tom McCall threatened to lay his body in front of any shipments of chemical agents from Okinawa to Oregon, shipments the Pentagon proposed. Instead, the military decided to store the weapons at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific. An incinerator started at that island in 1989 is the model from which Umatilla's plant and others are derived.

Umatilla started incinerating rockets armed with Sarin nerve agent last fall. The incinerator has now destroyed roughly 4,300 rockets. It is to run through at least 2009.

Michelle Cole contributed to this report.

Andy Dworkin: 503-221-8239; andydworkin@news.oregonian.com