Plan for disposing of mustard gas prompts skepticism

PORTLAND -- Oregon environmental officials say they will listen to the Army's ideas about changing disposal plans for thousands of tons of deadly mustard gas, but indicate it will be a tough sell.

Assistant Army Secretary Mario Fiori will meet tomorrow with Gov. John Kitzhaber and his environmental staff to suggest that the 2,440 tons of mustard gas stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot be neutralized with water instead of being burned.

Mustard gas makes up about 64 percent of the 3,717 tons of deadly chemical war agents stored at the depot. Trial burns at the $1.2 billion incinerator are to start in May. Regular incineration is scheduled to begin in February 2003 and to be complete in 2007.

"We are open to hearing what Fiori has to say about neutralization, but we have serious reservations about the amount of water involved," said Chris Dearth, environmental projects director for the governor's Natural Resources Office.

"It is an enormous amount -- we are told in the millions of gallons a day," he said. "That kind of water is just not available."

Agricultural demands on water in the area are heavy and growing.

The Army says neutralization is quicker and cheaper and in January released a disposal plan for treating mustard gas stored at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

The Army said neutralization would save $250 million at the Aberdeen facility.

In neutralization, the mustard agent is mixed with water and heated in a reactor to destroy the mustard agent.

The end product of the reaction will then be treated to neutralize the resulting acids. The state is awaiting some details of the process from Aberdeen.

Dearth said the secondary waste created at the Oregon facility would have to be shipped out of state for processing.

Also, he said, the state has worked for years to prepare for the incineration of mustard gas and other chemical agents at the depot. "We don't want to upset the community consensus we have spent years building," he said.

Wayne Thomas, who administers the chemical demobilization program for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, said neutralization of the mustard agent -- and other munitions -- was considered in 1996-1997 when the original assessment was done on the technology to be used at Umatilla.

Concern over the amount of water needed also was raised at that time, he said.

"We made the decision that the best technique was incineration," he said. "We stand by that today."

But while neutralization has been approved for mustard gas at Aberdeen, that process has not yet been used, he said.

"Incineration has been demonstrated as being very successful, from the original tests in Utah to the pilot project on Johnston Island (in the Pacific) to the fully operating Deseret plant in Utah.

"Overall, the Army has destroyed more chemical agent (by incineration) than we even have at Umatilla," he said. "The track record is there."

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