Depot trial questions Army's integrity

This story was published Tue, Oct 29, 2002

By Karen Zacharias
Herald staff writer

PORTLAND -- Did the Army lie when it applied for a permit to burn 3,717 tons of chemical weapons stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot?

That question and others about the Army's integrity were the focus of a trial that continued in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Monday. The trial, which began last week, challenges the Army's permit to burn chemical munitions stored at the depot 30 miles south of the Tri-Cities.

The suit contends the Army lied on its permit application and claims the Army's relationship with a contractor employed by Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality represents a conflict of interest.

The permit was granted by the DEQ in 1997. Three environmentalist groups, GASP, the Oregon Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club, and 20 Umatilla and Morrow county residents are seeking to have the permit revoked.

Their attorneys questioned whether state regulators knew the Army concealed information in its permit application. State regulators admitted they were concerned when they learned the Army was shipping secondary waste such as storage pallets from its Tooele, Utah, facility rather than burning it in its dunnage incinerator.

Oregon's regulators have said they won't allow that.

"I was concerned," said Wayne Thomas, program manager for DEQ. He said he sent a scathing memo to the Army about the matter. "I wanted to get the Army to respond, and to do that took a big kick in the rear end."

The challengers' attorneys also argued there is a conflict of interest between the Army and the state's contractor, Ecology and Environment Inc. The state hired the firm to assess health risks to neighboring communities.

The attorneys provided a handout to the court that listed the Army, Navy, Air Force and Army Corps of Engineers as the contractor's primary clients.

"In the context of the petition request for revocation, did you consider the relationship between E and E and the Army?" asked Richard Condit, the groups' Washington, D.C., attorney.

"No," said Sue Oliver, DEQ senior manager for the project. "We relied on the professional ethics of the contractor."

Oliver also testified her salary is paid by the Army. In lieu of paying permit fees, the Army pays for some state costs.

Regulators denied there was any conflict of interest.

"You'd be hard pressed to find a large environmental company without large federal contracts of some kind," Thomas said. He said he had confidence in the firm's health risk analysis. "I trust them. They have an ethical commitment to high professional standards.

"They are the exception to the Enron rule."

Not everyone agreed.

"I don't think E and E wants the community to know about their relationship with the Army," said Stuart Sugarman, a Portland attorney for the anti-incineration group. "They have serious conflicts of interest."

Sugarman said risk assessments done by the contractor failed to consider noncancer health risks such as birth defects, respiratory ailments and reproductive problems.

"There's a whole range of health symptoms they have not even considered yet," he said.

Oliver testified DEQ does not continuously monitor the stack for toxic substances during trial burns. She said it also doesn't monitor the stack during the burning of chemical agent.

But she said such continuous monitoring isn't done at any hazardous waste chemical site. And Sugarman agreed.

Oliver also said much of the health risk analysis is guesswork.

"There is so much uncertainty involved," she said. "There are multiple chemicals and effects of exposure to multiple chemicals. Nobody really knows what those effects will be."

But it's the guesswork that troubles the Army's opponents.

"They don't know what's coming out of those stacks," said J.R. Wilkinson, an environmental consultant and Umatilla County resident. "They are only guessing, and they're guessing with people's lives."

The trial is expected to continue for several weeks.

 

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