New DEQ depot official takes post

This story was published Mon, Feb 3, 2003

By Karen Spears Zacharias
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON -- His bushy beard and graying hair edging his shirt collar give Dennis Murphey the appearance of the quintessential college professor.

It's an image that suits him. At one time, Murphey was the director of environmental education and training for the University of Kansas.

But last week Murphey stepped into his
new office and new role as program administrator for the Umatilla Chemical Depot for
the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The role makes him one of the top regulators overseeing the destruction of the 3,717 tons of weapons stored at the site 35 miles south of the Tri-Cities. It's a job DEQ officials believe Murphey will accomplish artfully.

"We feel that we have found a top-notch administrator," said Paul Slyman, deputy director for DEQ in Portland. "Both DEQ Director Stephanie Hallock and I have the utmost confidence that Dennis will do what is necessary at the chemical weapons depot to ensure timely destruction of the munitions there."

Murphey, 53, said he's really happy to be in Hermiston. That's understandable given that he just made the trip by car from his last job site in Cincinnati. Despite winter road hazards, Murphey said the trip was pretty uneventful except for snow in Kansas and pouring rain at nightfall on Meacham, just east of Pendleton.

Murphey said his former position as director of Cincinnati's Department of Environmental Management was phased out. Murphey said the mayor and city manager shut down the entire environmental department and abolished the city's clear air ordinance.

He was reluctant to identify economic reasons as the motivation for the decision. But he said, "The mayor is very pro-development."

Suffice to say, tensions common to industries and regulators aren't anything new to Murphey.

One of the biggest challenges he had at his former job was a municipal landfill inside the city, neighboring a housing project.

"It had been there for 20 years and was at the end of its life," Murphey said.

However, the landfill owners didn't want to shut the operation down. Murphey said several lawsuits over the matter eventually resulted in a three-way settlement.

The metro area of Cincinnati has 1.75 million people, and within the city limits there are 365,000. Murphey said he worked with 52 neighborhood boards and together they helped develop a greenway master plan for the city's waterway, Mill Creek.

That project hasn't been completed, but Murphey said the creek is in much better condition than it was when it was used as an open sewer for industry waste water.

In general, Ohio doesn't have the stellar environmental reputation Oregon aspires to.

"I think the state (Ohio) has made progress in recent years even though they've had to deal with diminishing resources like everybody else," Murphey said. "But, certainly, it isn't very well regarded by organized environmental groups."

Murphey's own interest in environmental issues began while growing up in southern Oklahoma.

"Growing up near the oil patches, I saw firsthand what happens to vegetation when oil or saltwater is dumped on the ground," he said.

The scars of such negligence marred the earth and bothered Murphey.

Murphey also remembers whipping up the car's window whenever his family drove past a town with a petroleum refinery.

"Back then the smell of crude oil was the smell of money," Murphey said of the hydrogen sulfide stench often associated with fresh crude. "But I did always wonder how people could live in those towns with those bad odors."

Murphey obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry and his graduate degree in biochemistry at Oklahoma State. He said during the early 1970s there was no such thing as an environmental science degree, so he used his electives to study environmental issues.

"I enjoyed the way science overlapped with botany, chemistry and biology," Murphey said.

While growing up in Oklahoma, he said he also developed an appreciation for American Indian culture. He said he knows why the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation regard the oral word just as valuable as a written contract. He said he understands why the tribes have continued to express concerns about promises made by the Army.

And, even though he's never regulated a chemical munitions incineration facility before, Murphey believes incineration can be a safe technology.

"If incineration is properly controlled and regulated it is a viable alternative for organic matter including these types of agent compounds," he said. "DEQ has a mission to protect the environment and public health. I intend to make sure this project is carried out safely."

 

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