Depot procedures questioned after worker leaves with sarin

This story was published Tue, Aug 27, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

UMATILLA -- Two hours passed Friday before a lab worker at the Umatilla Chemical Depot realized he had mistakenly stuck a vial of diluted nerve agent into his pants pocket and driven to his Kennewick home.

No alarms sounded when he left his shift early at 3 p.m. because he had a headache.

And no security officers stopped him. Depot officials didn't even realize until the 5 p.m. shift change that the vial was missing, said Mary Binder, an Army spokeswoman. During the shift change, which occurs every 12 hours, the vials are counted.

"Two supervisors changing shifts counted the samples and noticed one missing," she said Monday.

By then the worker was rushing back to the depot to return the vial of diluted nerve agent, which is used to test the air monitoring system for possible leaks, Binder said.

There never was a public health hazard, she emphasized.

"This wasn't a harmful situation. It was human error," Binder said. Still, she said, Army officials "take this very seriously."

She said the Army would immediately make changes to "track (agent) more closely." Binder says there already are tougher standards for working with and tracking more potent samples of chemical agents.

Still, state regulators are alarmed over Friday's incident and the fact they weren't notified for 16 hours. Hermiston emergency officials were called about 5:30 p.m., but hospital officials never were called.

Sarin has characteristics similar to water. It evaporates easily. A drop of concentrated sarin can kill a person.

The nerve agent was the weapon of choice for cult members who released the vaporous chemical on a crowded Tokyo subway in 1995. A dozen people died and 5,000 were injured.

"It's a great concern that anybody could get through security and walk off the installation with a container," said Wayne Thomas, program administrator for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

He said the state is considering what, if any, action to take, including a possible fine.

"We don't think it's appropriate for an employee to put samples of sarin in their pockets," Thomas said. "Why was this guy in his street clothes?"

He said the agency wants assurances the 3,717 tons of deadly chemical agent stored at the site are accounted for at all times.

"We want the Army to be accountable. We want them to tell us where a sample is, who has it and how it's being managed," Thomas said.

Binder declined to comment on whether the lab worker was fired or disciplined over the incident. She said he is employed by Southwest Research Institute, a Texas-based subcontractor on the incinerator project.

Lab technicians are not required to have a college education. But they are required to complete an extensive six-week training course in which they are taught how to handle chemical agents such as sarin, VX and mustard gas, Binder said.

Workers also undergo a background check that includes criminal, financial and any drug abuse history, Binder said.

She also noted workers are not required to wear protective gear for handling diluted agent.

A vial of diluted sarin isn't considered a hazard to the public or the environment, Binder said. But, she added: "It's not appropriate for an employee to put samples in their pockets. That's not part of the procedure. And we want to do all we can to make sure it won't happen again."

Thomas said Monday that he is concerned it took the Army so long to call the state.

"We weren't notified of the incident until Saturday morning. I would expect the Army to notify us in a much more prompt manner than 16 hours later," Thomas said.

But Binder said the nature of the incident didn't require Army officials to notify the local agencies any sooner than they did.

"There are different notifications requirements depending upon the different types of incidences we might have," Binder explained.

Umatilla County emergency officials said they thought the Army had done a good job in notifying the communities.

"We felt like the information was issued in a timely manner," said Cheryl Humphrey, spokeswoman for Umatilla County emergency program. "The situation didn't merit an additional action."

Hermiston Fire Chief Jim Stearns said he was notified after 5:30 p.m. Friday. Stearns directs the emergency operations command post at Hermiston if there's an event at the depot.

"I don't know why there would've been a delay. That concerns me," Stearns said.

Moreover, Stearns said, he wasn't given much information other than there was a vial of diluted sarin missing.

"You can dilute sarin a lot and it could still be very dangerous," he said.

Boardman Fire Chief Marc Rogelstad said he didn't know about the incident until 2 p.m. Monday. A fax about the incident was sent from the Army's emergency operations center over the weekend.

"Their job is to notify dispatch," Rogelstad said.

Ken Franz is director of emergency services for Hermiston's Good Shepherd Health Care System. Franz said hospital officials never received any notification of Friday's incident.

Franz said if a vial containing concentrated forms of sarin or VX disappeared from the depot it could pose a terrifying public health hazard.

"One drop of concentrated GB (sarin) or VX could kill you," Franz said. "The stuff being stored at the depot in those bombs and rockets is extremely potent. It could absolutely kill people."

The vial that was mistakenly taken home by the lab technician was diluted with alcohol. The sarin concentration of the solution in the missing vial was estimated at 29.3 parts per billion.

"It's probably less a health hazard than the pesticides sprayed on the fields to kill aphids," Franz said.

But Franz wouldn't rule out that the diluted sarin could have harmed the employee carrying the sealed vial.

"It'd be hard to imagine if that vial broke that the worker wouldn't show some sort of symptoms of exposure," Franz said.

Army officials have recently reported other instances involving worker exposures to sarin and VX at incinerator sites in Tooele, Utah, and at Johnston Atoll, 750 miles southwest of Hawaii. Those sites have stopped incineration until all investigations are completed. The Army hopes to begin burning chemical agents at Umatilla in May 2003.

 

Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.