Umatilla Tribes official asks panel to beef up depot's post-leak plans

This story was published Wed, Apr 4, 2001

By Mary Hopkin
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON - Plenty of plans are in place to make sure the community knows what to do if a chemical accident occurs at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

But who is responsible for making sure people know what to do in the days and weeks after a chemical release?

That was the question Umatilla Tribes representative Armand Minthorn posed Tuesday to members of Gov. John Kitzhaber's Executive Review Panel.

Minthorn, a panel member, was concerned that so much emphasis has been placed on preparedness for a chemical event that the period following an accident was being ignored.

But most on the panel, which was formed last May to evaluate the communities' emergency preparedness and report back to the governor, believed Minthorn's concerns were not the panel's charge.

Kitzhaber said last summer he would not allow the Army to begin test burns of the incinerator being built at the depot to destroy chemical weapons until the panel finds that the community and area emergency personnel are up to handling a chemical emergency. That means having qualified and trained personnel, as well as sufficient emergency and safety equipment.

That's a big enough task within itself, said Umatilla County Commissioner Dennis Doherty.

It's hard to say how close the Army is to testing its incinerators, which nearly are complete.

The Army and the state still must agree on how secondary wastes will be managed, and trial burn plans are still under review.

But the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program, which is in charge of educating the public and preparing emergency programs, won't be ready by October, either.

The two-way radio system that emergency response teams would use won't be ready by then, and some air monitors won't be in place.

Under the current Army schedule, construction is to be complete by May and testing of the incinerators should start in October, with operations following in July 2002.

But schedule changes are nothing new for the project to destroy the 3,717 tons of chemical weapons stored at the depot west of Hermiston. The Army's original incineration start date was October 2001, which was later changed to mid-2002.

 

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