OREGON LOCAL NEWS
Army confirms worker exposed to mustard agent at Umatilla depot
By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
April 05, 2010, 7:52PM
The U.S. Army said Monday that a worker at the Umatilla Chemical Depot was exposed to mustard agent last month, and it pledged to retrain workers and make other improvements.
A review by the Army's Chemical Materials Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the March 17 exposure through urine samples. The exposure, which gave the worker a small blister, is the third nationwide since the Army began destruction of chemical weapons in 1990, using eight depots in the continental United States.
The incident occurred when two workers were calibrating a scale that weighs the big storage tanks prior to tank incineration, said Greg Mahall, a materials agency spokesman.
The workers put weighing blocks onto a sled that holds the tanks, then slid the blocks and sled onto the scale. At that point, mustard agent left over on a nozzle used to suction out the agent for incineration dripped off the nozzle onto the blocks, Mahall said.
When the workers extracted the sled and blocks, they incorrectly assumed the liquid was hydraulic fluid or oil, and some of the agent contacted one worker's skin.
Sensors registered low levels of mustard agent in an airlock as the workers were leaving the incinerator building.
The 19,728-acre depot 11 miles west of Hermiston has served since 1941 as a repository for weapons and chemical agents.
It's in the midst of its startup period of incinerating mustard gas. But incineration has stopped in light of the exposure until workers are retrained in safety procedures, said Hal McCune, protocol manager for URS Corp., the Army contractor processing the waste.
Immediate steps include better cleanup of the nozzle and a requirement that workers alert the control room and evacuate the area if they find liquids they can't identify.
The two maintenance workers, both back at work, were wearing less intensive protective clothing in the incineration staging area, including gas masks, gloves, boots and cotton coveralls, when the incident occurred. Until an event review board completes its review of the incident, Mahall said workers will wear the highest level of protection throughout the incineration facility.
-- Scott Learn