No cause for alarm at depot, EPA promises

This story was published Thu, Feb 22, 2001

By Mary Hopkin
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency didn't mean to scare anyone when they suggested state officials take a closer look at the possibility of chemical agents leaking at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

And the federal agency wants to make sure the public knows human health never was threatened.

"In no way did we mean to alarm people," said Bill Dunbar, agency spokesman. "When you get really low-level hits, there are uncertainties and it's hard to know exactly what it is. The prudent thing to do is to investigate."

And that's all Richard Albright, EPA's director of waste and chemicals management, was trying accomplish by writing the letter to the Department of Environmental Quality, Dunbar said.

In the letter, Albright said agency experts conducted a study and discovered 59 positive hits of sarin and nerve agents last summer between May 18 and July 17.

Dunbar emphasized that EPA did not conduct an independent review or collect its own data for the study.

"We used data compiled by the Army," Dunbar said.

Dunbar said Albright's letter caused a flurry of media calls to the EPA and had people concerned about leaking chemical agents at the depot.

Those concerns are unfounded, he added. In the worst possible case, levels still would have remained less than 20 percent of the allowable exposure levels for the general public, Dunbar said.

Nevertheless, the EPA's recommendations that the state conduct further investigation of the data still stands, he added.

The EPA conducted the study at the request of Griffin McCandlish, a Portland law firm representing 18 of 34 construction workers suing the Army and its contractor.

The workers were helping construct an incinerator to destroy the 6.6 million pounds of sarin and nerve agents stored at the depot when they suddenly became ill Sept. 15, 1999.

The Army has denied chemical agents were the cause of the workers' sickness, and investigations by the Occupational Safety & Hazard Administration and the incinerator contractor, Raytheon, backed up the Army's findings.

The DEQ has performed subsequent tests, which also rule out chemical agent as a cause. But those tests also show that perimeter monitors may have detected chemical agent byproducts, which are not toxic to humans, but may be evidence of a prior release.

The National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to review the depot's monitoring system.

Lt. Col. Tom Woloszyn, depot commander, said he has invited EPA officials to visit the depot and see how it is operated.

"If they come out and see for themselves, review our records, procedures and training, they will find out byproducts caused those readings," Woloszyn said. "The state's report is firm that there isn't any chemical agent involved."

 

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