A group of community advocates Tuesday asked the U.S. Army to install new systems to monitor for chemical weapons fumes at eight U.S. sites, including the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Northeast Oregon.
In a news conference, the Chemical Weapons Working Group said existing monitors are not adequate because workers must harvest air samples from them, which happens every eight to 12 hours.
"If a chemical agent was released this minute at any of the sites, it could take up to 12 hours before the community knew about it," said Craig Williams, the group's director. "That is simply not reasonable, and we demand better."
Williams said the Army should start using a technology called Fourier Transform Infrared to continuously monitor the air outside chemical weapons depots and automatically sound a warning when weapons gases are present.
The Army uses the Fourier infrared equipment for some jobs involving chemical cleanups but says its existing monitoring machinery is best at the chemical weapons storage and disposal sites.
Umatilla spokeswoman Mary Binder said the existing systems can detect far smaller quantities of chemicals than the Fourier equipment -- even a few molecules of chemicals. She said the detectors circling the chemical sites can be sampled every few minutes, if needed.
The Army has several safety systems besides monitoring to avoid chemical releases, Binder said. -- Andy Dworkin