2001: Strict control of news from chemical depot ...

Hermiston Herald - - Dec 4, 2001
Strict control of news from chemical depot nothing new
By Frank Lockwood

Because of official policy, for the most part the public knows only what the Army and it's contractors want known about chemical demilitarization at Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF).

If past news stories about Umatilla Chemical Depot seemed as if they were written by the Army and the Army's contractors, that is because, largely, they probably were. And that may account for the scarcity of personal interviews and genuine on-the-scene reporting.

There has seen a news clampdown since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast, but information stemming from the depot's demilitarization program had been controlled long before then.

Before Sept. 11, the depot issued frequent press releases regarding activities and events at the depot. Since then, the approach has changed to a policy of "If not asked, do not tell." Public information officers still answer some questions, if asked specific questions, but no longer volunteer information.

But the news from the depot was filtered long before Sept. 11. Construction workers, in order to be hired, were required, first by Raytheon and later by Washington Demilitarization, to sign "no singing" contracts which prevented them from speaking with the media without prior approval from media experts.

Raytheon's document, titled UM-POL-006, effective Sept. 9, 1999, described the conditions and methods by which Raytheon employees could release Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility project information to the general public. The policy also applied to all Raytheon subcontractors.

The protocol officer was required to review and pre-approve all Raytheon and Raytheon subcontractor-generated materials intended for public use. The protocol officer also was to ensure accurate notification and coordination of public information with the Department of the Army before public release.

Information for public release included, but was not limited to, information for public meetings, response to questions regardless of source or method received, and any presentation materials produced for a public audience. In other words, information the media and the public is allowed to have is limited to that which both the contractors and the Army want them to have."The Protocol Officer will pre-approve all final statements provided to the general public," the document states.

Furthermore, Raytheon employees were not to speak their minds in public meetings, and were to give advance notice of their involvement. "Raytheon employees planning participation in public meetings will contact the Protocol Officer at least three working days in advance of a public presentation and provide the Protocol Officer with presentation materials." A similar policy was described in Washington Demilitarization's UM-POL-001. "It is (Washington Demilitarization's) policy not to release information to the media, except through the Protocol Officer, or ... Project Manager," the policy says.

Furthermore, the contractor does not welcome surprise visits by the media. Employees were ordered not to speak, even if spoken to by the media.The following instructions were included in the employee training and
contracts:

• Do not give interviews or release information unless directed by the
• Protocol Officer.
• Direct all media inquiries to the Protocol Officer.
• Contact Umatilla Chemical Depot Security and the Protocol Officer immediately if the media arrives unannounced at the UMCDF site.

In addition, the company wanted to coordinate (with the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization Office's Public Affairs Officer) in advance all information to be released .

While people in the community have been interviewed, their opinions were likely formed through information that had been laundered.

First-hand accounts of day by day activities at Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility were, and will likely continue to be, rare.

According to a local union official, workers have too much to lose by speaking their minds, regardless of what they might want to say

2002: FEMA remarks catch Army off guard

Hermiston Herald
May 14, 2002
FEMA remarks catch Army off guard
HERMISTON - The Army is as committed to emergency preparedness as ever, despite reports that FEMA wants out of the chemical stockpile demilitarization business, Army officials said Monday.

Oregon Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program determined Friday that they had passed performance measures. That success coincided with reports that FEMA wanted to cut its ties with CSEPP.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Allbaugh reportedly requested that FEMA be relieved of its duties associated with CSEPP, and was quoted as saying "The Army should have the whole program."

Denzel Fisher from the office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, attended Monday's Irrigon meeting of the Oregon CSEPP Governing Board, and gave a "history" of FEMA involvement. Friday's news had taken him off guard, he said, but FEMA has tried on two earlier occasions to be relieved of CSEPP responsibilities. The problems were worked out then and likely will be now as well, he said. At any rate, the Army has always been, and remains, committed to state and local government when critical emergency preparedness items were needed, he said.

"You will not find a time when the Army has failed to support the federal emergency program," he said. Instead, he said, "it was the Army's decision to create this program in the first place. I was the one who negotiated for the original money in 1988." In 1997, FEMA had tried to back out of CSEPP. "It has been a rocky road, but we have always been able to work through things, and this is not going to be an exception," he said.

"The Army's responsible for the demilitarization program and always will be," he said. If more money is needed, the Army will make requests to Congress and negotiate aggressively for it, he said. Emergency preparedness will always have the Army's support, "regardless of who is calling the shots," he said.

Board members asked whether they would be able to have input into any reorganization. Army Special Assistant Larry Skelley, who was also present Monday, said "If we have to reorganize, it will be done, I think, with complete and total participation by the state." As a measure of government commitment to preparedness, CSEPP is the only federal program he is aware of that is fully funded, Skelly told The
Hermiston Herald.

Although Fisher and Skelly were outspoken about the Army's commitment to CSEPP, no one at the meeting had information that would shed light on Allbaugh's comments. They did not know the context, or what Allbaugh meant by the statements, Skelly and Fisher said.

In other business, the Governing Board decided to recommend to today's meeting of the Governor's Executive Review Panel that the ERP's report to the governor say that emergency preparedness is adequate to start up the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, although they agreed the ERP report should be qualified with a letter explaining that there was unfinished necessary work to be done, including the purchase and implementation of a 450-megahertz radio system.

End

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Preserved by Chemcical Weapons Working Group, thank you CWWG (http://www.cwwg.org/hh05.14.02.html)

2002: Army Concludes Analysis of risk assessment

Hermiston Herald
August 20, 2002
Army concludes analysis of risk assessment
By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer

HERMISTON - The Army has finished a defense of the UMCDF Quantitative Risk Assessment Phase 1. Meanwhile, local emergency managers say they have yet to receive a copy of QRA Phase 2, which the Army says is secret.

The review was done at the request of the state in response to comments by Texas risk analyst Jared Black who had done an unfunded review of the document. It is hard to tell who is right in the matter, but emergency managers say the result is extra safety for residents and the environment. Black had first argued there were weaknesses in the Phase 1 study, when he wrote that:

• The Army's seismic (earthquake) risk is overstated
• The fault tree analysis gives no details on the processing risks
• No information is given on the relationship between the quantity of
• chemical agent release and public health risk.

The Governor's office waited five months, but eventually took Black's comments seriously enough to ask the Army to look into them, and the Army did that. In an August 1 letter from Aberdeen, Maryland, PMCD's Delbert Bunch thanked Governor John Kitzhaber for the "opportunity to address Dr. Jared Black's assessment."

The Army had hired Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to review some of Black's remarks. Black's initial assessment had reinforced the view that continued storage of the chemical agent presents the greatest risk to the community. Bunch wrote, "I wish to express my thanks to R.Black," and, "The public will gain a better understanding of the risk assessment process and the need to destroy these weapons as soon as possible."

Beneath the diplomatic language lurked basic differences in approach and a lack of communication between the major players. Black, in a July 30 e-mail correspondence with the Hermiston Herald, said SAIC had not consulted with him, and that neither the new nor the old toxicity standards were reliable.

"I've not been contacted by anyone other than (the activists) Craig Williams and Karyn Jones, and that was some time ago," he wrote. "I've reviewed the EPA AEGL reports on VX and the G series nerve agents and find them surprisingly weak."

Following Black's initial review of the Phase 1 QRA, Black investigated further, and ended up with more concerns, this time regarding the Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGLs) proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The new guidelines are eventually expected to provide a common standard for organizations responding to chemical accidents. A technical review group, which includes Oregon and Washington officials, is now reviewing AEGL information.

SAIC's technical response puts off arguments about the AEGLs for later, on the one hand, and defends QRA Phase 1 on the other, citing alleged flaws in Black's study. "It is not possible to determine if Dr. Black's source data or analysis were completed with the same depth and rigor as that used in the UMCDF (Army documents)," the response states. SAIC further criticized some of Black's methods as "simplistic" and "without the degree of rigor" that the Army had used.

Seismic Events: Much of the SAIC report is technical, with terminology such as "ground motion attenuation relationships," and it includes complex mathematical formulas that are given to demonstrate that the Army was right, Black wrong, about seismic events. Other parts of the report seem clear enough for the lay reader: "What is critical is that the public understands that a severe earthquake, though very rare, could strike tomorrow."

Processing Risks risks not explicit in the report were assumed to be the same as those in Tooele, SAIC says. And for many "initiating events" there is no escape of agent to the environment. "Fault trees" are in the appendix. Agent type, release quantity, release duration, release type [spill, explosion, fire, etc.] and relevant consequence estimates for each sequence are include in the3 draft Phase 2 QRA.

Black was traveling at the time the SAIC report came out, but said he will look at the SAIC documents after he returns from his trip, which will be in September. An August 5 letter from Black to William Sanders, US EPA's Office Director, however, indicate Black's position at that time. He wrote, "The people living near the facility are concerned about the safety of the disposal process. ... Their concern is not misplaced."

While the Army's allowable toxicity levels, based on healthy male soldiers, were too high for the general public, Black says that the EPA's figures are biased in the other direction.

"I find the Public Draft reports provide very weak scientific support for the proposed AEGLs; the recommended thresholds are strongly, even unreasonably, biased toward low exposure levels. The result is that the exposure levels used in the Army's Phase 1 QRA are placed in question by equally questionable EPA results, leaving the public with no reliable way to assess their own safety."

And SAIC's analysis said, "Black takes the simplistic approach that any even involving a certain number of munitions results in an immediate and total release of the agent contents of those munitions."

Whether that is true, and regardless who is right, emergency managers say they are glad that, when in doubt, the EPA set lower exposure levels. In cases where there was uncertainty, the EPA simply built in a greater factor of safety, and that means more protection for the public, they say.

Morrow County Emergency Manager Casey Beard, however, told the Hermiston Herald earlier this month that he had yet to see a copy of Army's updated risk analysis, or QRA Phase 2, and that he needs that documentation in order to ensure the safety of the community. Beard said he can qualify for any level of security which the Army might require, but, "I need to see a copy of that information."

End
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Appreciation: Article was preserved by iRazoo (http://www.irazoo.com/ViewSite.aspx?q=Hermiston+Herald&Page=1&irp=1&Site=http://www.cwwg.org/hh08.20.02b.html

Thank you iRazoo.

2002: Army, review of risk assessments

Hermiston Herald
Sept. 24, 2002
Review of risk assessments may be ready in December
By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer
HERMISTON - A review of the Army's new UMCDF Quantitative Risk Assessment is nearly completed: Panel members say they do not know if the Army will apply all of their recommendations.

The Army's new QRA, which is said to include more details on processing risks than former versions of the QRA, was in process for several years before it was submitted to the panel. The panel has held 12 meetings and 17 teleconferences since October 1999, and their report includes "in-depth review and comments" on the QRA methodology described in preliminary draft QRAs for UMCDF (Umatilla, July 2001) and ANCDF (Anniston, Ala., October 2000).

Speaking to the Citizens Advisory Commission on Thursday, concerning the new report, were Katheryn Higley, an associate professor at Oregon State University, and Shib Seth, a senior technical advisor with the Department of Engergy. Five other members of the panel, not present Thursday, included experts in probablistic risk assessment, process design, mathematical modeling, safety analysis and other fields related to risk assessment. The review was done in connection with Mitretek Systems, a not-for-profit organization that works "exclusively in the public interest."

As part of the study, the panel looked at review analyses performed by the contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The panel made recommendations concerning QRA methodology, QRA maintenance and update, reduction of risks indentified by the QRA, and use of the QRA in risk management.
When questioned, panel representatives could not tell a local DEQ official what will happen if the Army disagrees with their recommendations. DEQ Administrator Wayne Thomas asked whether the Army was to be required to follow the recommendations, and what would be the process if the Army should happen to disagree with some of those recommendations. Seth and Higley acknowledged those were important questions but said they did not yet know the answers.

The UMCDF QRA is scheduled for completion in December 2002, but panel members and Army sources have said that the new QRA is expected to be a "living document' subject to change as changes are made to the design or operation of the plant.

Following the 911 terrorist attack, so-called "external events," including terrorist acts, have been given new attention.

(1998) Depot brings dramatic changes to town

Depot brings dramatic changes to town By Frank Lockwood, page 6, Vision 2000, The Hermiston Herald, Tuesday, December 1, 1998


In just one year, from 1940 to 1941, Hermiston changed from a desert village of about 800 people into a boom town with 7,000 workers hammering, shoveling and pouring concrete to build the world's largest munitions depot in record time. The Umatilla Ordnance Depot has since been renamed several times and is now the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

The influx of construction workers overwhelmed local businesses and government. At times the local taverns had to shut down when they ran completely out of beer; it was strictly first come, first served.

Notes in Army archives described the town:

"Men who came and got work (had) $100 a week to spend. Their attempts to spend it made this peaceful village overnight into an overgrown carnival working a 24-hour shift. Hastily-erected lunch rooms and hot dog stands, soft drink and beer establishments, a movie, grocery stores, shoeshine stands, and meat markets played to long waiting lines.

"Living spaces became a luxury. Householders rented spare rooms, then rented front lawns and vacant lots for trailer space. The army erected barracks for 1,700 men at the depot but married men and their families still swarmed in. One farmer threw away his plow and turned his 160 acres into sought-after trailer space.
"With families still living in tents or under any shelter available, the state and federal governments stepped in. They provided migratory worker and trailer camps and augmented school facilities – just about the time the end of the job was sighted."

Thus, in 1940, life picked up in Hermiston. On Nov.14, 1940, after Washington D.C. announced Captain Robert C. Williams had been ordered to Hermiston, the Herald reported:

"What is to follow is known only in Washington, D.C.... Many rumors have floated about the streets of Hermiston... but the Herald will not seek to publish any of them."

By Dec.19, 1940, the government announced a huge contract to build the largest munitions depot in the world, right here in Hermiston, for a cost of $9,000,000. To put that in perspective, "Regular Size" cornflakes cost only five cents at the time. A new Sealy mattress sold for $29.50. Patent leather shoes were $2.25 a pair. You could buy a new John Deere tractor, mower, and back-rake for $730.

So $9 million was a lot of money those days. Some estimates were the cost would rise to $12 million. Then to $15 million. A 1990 Army document put the total construction cost at $35 million.
For the wages, the crews worked their tails off, setting world records for that type of work. On Sept.24, 1941, they poured 24 concrete igloos in 24 hours, using 9,000 yards of concrete.

To do this job, workers flocked to Hermiston, overwhelming the merchants and outstripping the area's ability to provide basic services and housing.

In Sept.1941, "Portland Oregon Journal" featured Hermiston as the "hot spot" of the Northwest. Newspapers welcomed workers and hailed their record-setting volumes of concrete poured during igloo construction.
"Workers from all sectors of the country came to drill the depot's deep wells, build its magazines, warehouses and shops, and carry out its 241-mile network of road and railroad tracks," an Army document says.
But by Nov.27, 1941, workers were leaving the town in droves as construction tapered off abruptly.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor, crippling the United States Navy Seventh Fleet and drawing the country in to the war. By December the Hermiston had posted guards at the city reservoir as part of the Civilian Defense Program and the depot went into service storing and shipping conventional weapons for use in World War II. According to Army documents, workers went on "round-the-clock -shifts to ship, receive, store and care for the items needed for war."

Because of the draft, whereby able-bodied men were called into military service, workers were scarce. Those who remained worked long, arduous hours. Women were plunged into the work force in unprecedented numbers. They drove heavy-duty trucks, handled ammunition, and built crates alongside men.


The Tragedy Igloos were designed so that, in the event of an explosion, the blast would go up, rather than out, to minimize the destruction. On March 21, 1944, bombs being stored in an ammunition storage igloo exploded, killing six civilian workers.

News reports said the blast was felt as far away as Lewiston, Idaho, and that the concussion traveled in waves, so that windows in a limited area were broken, but then the damage might "skip" several miles, to repeat itself. In some cases doors were blown off the hinges, and in others the casing went too. Seismographs in Spokane reported a "very slight" earth disturbance at the time of the explosion. However, the Army design proved effective in that the blast went upward as intended, and the sandy soil reportedly killed concussion to nearby bunkers. The Bunker housed 2,000 pound, "blockbuster" bombs used in aerial bombing, but contained "only a partial capacity of bombs."

No explanation was given of what actually caused the explosion, although some workers of the time speculated a bomb might have been defective, or may have been dropped "just right." News reports commended civilian workers for being "good soldiers" and for returning to work following the explosion.

Nevertheless, by May, the depot was running advertisements saying, "Help win the war!" Labor was on the decrease, the ad said, and the depot wanted people to sign up for a six-hour shift from 6 p.m. to 12 midnight. "This appeal is made to all able-bodied men in Hermiston," the ad said. The pay incentive was 81 cents per hour.

During the summer of 1945, huge stock of munitions were returned from overseas, and a "sizable amount" was routed to Hermiston for renovation, maintenance, and storage. Unserviceable ammunition was demilitarized and salvage was made of reusable components.

The Army built several new ammunition renovation shops and modified others, but the work "was a monumental task that took years to complete, Army documents say.

Thank you to Center for Columbia River History for preserving this on their web site: http://www.ccrh.org/
It was not until the 1960s that the depot would begin its role in storing toxic chemical munitions.

Chem Demil could lose $Millions (Columbia Basin Media article lifted from CWWG)

Author's note:  Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG) preserved this story on their web page at http://www.cwwg.org, on Dec. 19, 2005. Thank you to CWWG

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Story by F. Ellsworth Lockwood

The Pentagon has targeted new "alternative" chemical weapons programs for budget cuts, disappointing anti-incineration groups which view "alt-tech" as cleaner, safer, faster and cheaper than the present technologies.

Anti-incineration groups such as Chemical Weapons Working Group, GASP, Sierra Club and Oregon Wildlife Federation had hailed the new programs in Colorado and Kentucky as proof that the Army had now approved and accepted other methods of destruction besides so-called "baseline incineration" which they believe is dangerous to health and the environment. CWWG indicated the budget changes will eliminate disposal activities at sites important for demonstrating that alternative technologies are indeed viable.

The reports should be credible if the past is any indication: CWWG has at times been even better at projecting such things as cost overrides and scheduling changes than the Army's own press relations department. Pentagon documents showed that for 2006 the Pentagon is planning to allocate only $30 million for both Colorado and Kentucky, although those programs had been estimated to cost at $250 million or more. CWWG says completion of weapons disposal at Colorado and Kentucky would require $2 billion between 2006 and 2011, but that the Pentagon plans to cut funding for these programs down to a little more than $300 million for that time period.

Cuts of that size would likely halt alternative demolition of chemical weapons at storage sites in Richmond, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado. The Army apparently had the budget cutting plans before Christmas. Along with local, state and federal elected officials, the CWWG distributed a Pentagon decision document dated 21 December 2004, which referred to the possible delay of the program at both sites due to "external constraints the program must address." The same document is also being circulated in Colorado now. CWWG's Director, Craig Williams, denounced the planned cuts, calling them the Defense Department's “blatant disregard for the safety of tens of thousands of Americans due to extremely poor funding priorities.

The plans, if implemented, have international implications. "This funding approach makes compliance with the 2012 Chemical Weapons Convention deadline impossible, and is an admission by the United States that it is backing off its obligations regarding the Treaty," said Williams. Williams also questioned what he termed an Army “flip-flop” in regard to safety and security of communities living near the Kentucky stockpile. "Communities ... have been told for 20 years that the military will do whatever it takes to get rid of these weapons, because the risks (of continued storage) are so high,” Williams said, “And now that they (the Pentagon) are in a financial crunch we are being told that they have to let the weapons sit."

Williams also said that a 2002 classified report to Congress by the Secretary of the Army indicated Kentucky is considered to be the chemical weapons stockpile site at the highest risk for terrorism after 2007. Already, in 2004,the Pentagon pulled funds for chemical weapons disposal in Pueblo, Colorado, although Congress, fearing that the weapons sites could be terrorist targets, had requested the Army to accelerate the weapons disposal process, CWWG reported.

Pueblo resident and environmental activist Ross Vincent today said, "These funding cuts are a slap in the faces of our elected officials and the citizens of Colorado, who are working together for a safe disposal of these weapons. To the Pentagon we may be a number on a defense budget line item, but this is a real community facing real problems and risks."

Kentucky Senior Senator Mitch McConnell, in a prepared statement read by his representative at a press conference in Kentucky said, "The Department of Defense has an obligation to the citizens of Central Kentucky to dispose of chemical agents at the Blue Grass Army Depot in a safe and expeditious manner, and I will continue to devote my energy to ensuring that it lives up to that obligation."

Other presenters at Wednesday's press conference echoed the Senator's resolve, committing to fight for the funds necessary to move forward and not allow these weapons of mass destruction to languish in their community for another decade.

The cuts come twenty years after Congress ordered the U.S. Army to destroy its stockpile of obsolete chemical weapons, and at a time of concerns about terrorist threats. The Pentagon plans if implemented would cut funds for disposal of more than 3,134 tons of chemical weapons, according to CWWG, and this number represents 15 percent of the U.S. stockpile that remains to be destroyed.
.

About F. Ellsworth Lockwood's Articles

By F. Ellsworth Lockwood
Eltopia, WA

I have written numerous articles, many of which were published when I was a reporter for The Hermiston Herald, a weekly in Hermiston, Oregon. Many of those articles seem to have been lost, perhaps irretrievably. However, others are still out there on the Internet, and in order to preserve as many as possible I will start searching for those and posting them here as I find them. If I see typo's or editorial errorts, I will attempt to correct those. Otherwise, the articles will be post as they were originally written unless they are specifically referred to as "revised." Unfortunately they are in no particular order. In due time I will try to at least add labels so that one will be able to search topics, but to begin with I am just finding old articles that I have written, and plopping them down. Sorry.

Thank you to anyone who reads this blog, and I welcome your comments.