Army issues new orders on chemicals

This story was published Thu, Oct 10, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

UMATILLA -- The Army is promising to take a more stringent approach to handling its own weapons of mass destruction, including the deadly stockpile 30 miles south of the Tri-Cities at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

A strongly-worded safety plan was issued Wednesday by Assistant Secretary of the Army Mario Fiori. The new rules were sparked by a July incident in which a maintenance worker at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Utah, was exposed to sarin.

Fiori is in charge of the nation's depots where 24,000 tons of weapons such as VX, sarin and mustard agent are stored. Twelve percent are stored at Umatilla.

According to the Associated Press, the injured worker spread residual amounts of nerve agent from his leather gloves onto his hair after an alarm prompted him to change from a wide-angle face respirator to a safer, government-issued respirator.

He suffered disorientation, a headache, blurry vision, tightness in his chest and a runny nose. His pupils constricted and his red blood cell count dropped -- all symptoms of nerve agent poisoning, says the Army report.

The plan made the Army's expectations clear for a "strong, effective safety-first culture." But in light of the sarin incident at Tooele and ongoing problems at the nation's depot sites, the plan noted, "It's evident that needed changes are not yet in place."

Fiori promised the Army is going to fix the problems that endanger workers.

"There will be no tolerance of work practices that put workers at risk and no tolerance for management ... to penalize rather than promote workers' attempts to create a safer environment for themselves or their co-workers," he said in a written statement.

Wayne Thomas, depot site program manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, said he would be reviewing the plan line by line.

"We want to see if any changes need to be made at the Umatilla plant," Thomas said.

Greg Mahall, Army spokesman for the nation's Chemical Demilitarization Program, said there's been a lot of finger pointing over the sarin exposure at Tooele.

"It's time to put that aside," Mahall said. "We're always talking about safety being our first priority."

Army officials at Umatilla are reviewing Fiori's 18-page plan. But, so far, Army spokeswoman Mary Binder said there are no glaring problems at the Umatilla plant.

"We know the safety culture is very, very important to our contractor. They've been working toward a lot of these things already," Binder said.

Safety is the first topic of every meeting held at the Umatilla plant, said Rick Kelley, spokesman for Washington Demilitarization Co., the contractor hired to destroy the chemical agent stored at Umatilla, Anniston, Ala., Pine Bluff, Ark., and Johnston Atoll, 750 miles southwest of Hawaii.

"Safety has always been a top concern for us," Kelley said. "But, of course, if there is something in this plan that needs to be adopted and implemented to improve the plant here, we'll do it."

 

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