October 22, 2003

Umatilla workers seek to prove Army failed to protect their health

A suit by workers who fell ill while building the weapons depot continues in federal court

10/22/03

A trial under way this week in Portland will decide whether the U.S. Army failed to quickly and properly protect workers who got sick while building a chemical weapons incinerator near Umatilla in Eastern Oregon.

On September 15, 1999, dozens of laborers got sick while working on the fledgling plant. They described symptoms from trouble breathing to intense chest pain and vomiting; 34 went to the hospital. Some say they still feel significant health effects from the event.

The workers say they were exposed to sarin, a deadly nerve agent stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot. Sarin is one of three chemical weapons that the incinerator was designed to destroy. The Umatilla depot has about 3,700 tons of those three agents, roughly 12 percent of the nation's stockpile of chemical arms, according to the U.S. military. International law requires the government to destroy all those weapons.

Sickened workers sued the Army and an arm of Raytheon Co., which was building the incinerator, for damages. Raytheon and Washington Demilitarization Group, the current plant contractor, settled with the workers in August for an undisclosed amount. The claims against the Army are now being heard in Portland by U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Hubel.

Army officials agree that something sickened workers Sept. 15, 1999. But they have always maintained that they did not threaten workers' health and that no chemical weapons were released that day.

Investigations by the Army, other federal officials and Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality failed to find strong evidence of any nerve agent where the laborers were building the plant. They don't show what did cause the illness; some have suggested welding compounds or other industrial pollutants.

Umatilla Depot spokeswoman Mary Binder declined to discuss details of the suit Tuesday, citing Army policy against commenting on pending lawsuits.

Portland lawyer James McCandlish, who represents the workers, said he will not have to prove that sarin gas caused the injuries. He only needs to prove that Army officials did not handle the workers' injuries well, McCandlish said. Workers said that they did not get proper safety equipment for dealing with chemical weapons, that it took hours for them to get hospital care and for the Army to test whether nerve agents had leaked.

"They didn't do anything," McCandlish said of base officials' response to the sick workers. "They sat on their hands."

Court events Tuesday included one of the injured construction workers testifying that he saw men in "bubble suits" enter a chemical bunker near the construction site shortly before the workers fell ill, The Associated Press reported.

Randy Watkins, a welding inspector employed by military contractor Raytheon, said he saw one of the two men enter the concrete bunker closest to the incinerator around 9 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1999. Watkins said the man emerged after a few minutes and had "quite an animated conversation" with the other man.

"My understanding was if they were going to work on the igloos, they were going to do it on weekends or nights or whatever -- not while we were working," Watkins said, according to the wire service.

Testimony and arguments are likely to continue into next week, McCandlish said. If Hubel finds the Army negligent, further proceedings would set damages.

The incinerator, which contains several furnaces, has since been finished. Army officials are now trying to start the plant's various components and make sure they pass environmental tests.

Binder said the facility is on a pace to start destroying weapons next spring. That would be about a year later than initially hoped.