Army says depot waste water to be treated on-site

This story was published Fri, Aug 16, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON -- The Army reassured state environmental regulators Thursday that waste water produced at the Umatilla Chemical Depot will be treated on-site during the burning of nerve agent munitions.

"We've hired the crews, and we are funded to operate the facility," said Don Barclay, site project manager for the Army's Chemical Demilitarization program.

"Our plan is to have it ready for agent operations and to use the facility during agent operations."

Barclay made his comments before a Citizen Advisory Board meeting Thursday at Good Shepherd Health Care System in Hermiston.

That's good news, said Wayne Thomas, program administrator for Oregon's chief regulatory agency, the Department of Environmental Quality.

However, as further assurances to the public, Thomas said his agency will seek a modification to the incineration permit to alleviate any ambiguity about the Army's plan.

"I think that dovetails very nicely with the position you've expressed here," Thomas said.

Barclay said there has been misinformation published by the press.

Confusion over what the Army is going to do about the contaminated waste water produced during the burning of deadly nerve agents such as VX and mustard gas has been circulating since Barclay told community leaders that he might need to ship hazardous waste water off-site.

Moreover, Barclay disputed a report that the Army made a decision in 1998 to treat all waste water produced at the nation's depot sites elsewhere.

"That decision was made by one facility, Toole (Utah), based on their regulatory environment and their priorities. It was not a decision made by the Army" for all sites, Barclay said.

If Umatilla treats all its own waste water produced during agent burns -- as the Army has promised it will -- it will be the nation's only incineration plant to treat all of its own waste water. Although the Army has built treatment facilities at all its incinerator sites, the estimated $20 million brine reduction areas have never been used at Toole, Utah, and Anniston, Ala., and has only been used sparingly at the Johnson Atoll site, 750 miles south of Hawaii.

Greg Mahall, a spokesman for the nation's Chemical Demilitarization program, said the decision to ship waste water off-site at the Toole facility was based on costs savings, which he estimated to be about $8.4 million over the duration of the destruction of agent. Army officials at Anniston say they save $13 million treating their hazardous water elsewhere.

Mahall said waste water continues to be treated at the Johnson Atoll site. But, Mahall said, toxic water containing high metals is shipped from the island to a federally approved treatment facility in California.

Since March, the Army has been shipping waste water produced by the trial burns process through the Tri-Cities to Kent, south of Seattle.

There the waste water is treated at a federally approved facility, then eventually flushed into Puget Sound, Barclay said.

So far, 90 tanker trucks, carrying 5,000 gallons each, have left the depot site. Only a few of the tankers are carrying contaminated water above standard drinking water levels for chromium, a hazardous metal collected during the gas cleansing process.

"Most tankers have been below the permitted levels," Barclay said. But just to be on the cautious side, he noted, "We are treating all (waste water) as though it was hazardous."

Thanking Barclay, Thomas said the regulatory agency would now act to ensure the brines produced during agent burns will be treated and managed on-site.

 

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