Two recent leaks of chemical agent from the Utah weapons incinerator that preceded Oregon’s has apparently drawn little notice from local officials and media.

Though the leaks involved just 18 milligrams of sarin – about a single raindrop’s worth – they were considered severe enough to shut down the plant in Tooele since May 8. However, there were no injuries or any threat to the public, the Army reported.

County officials at a similar plant in Alabama have been upset about the incident, yet folks in Oregon haven’t shown much concern. Even Umatilla County Commissioner Dennis Doherty, who generally follows depot activities closely, admitted this one had slipped by him.

“I’m not (following it) simply because I haven’t been able to keep up with things that I have on my agenda,” he said earlier this week. “The truth of the matter is it’s hard to know what to make of those experiences that they’re having in Tooele. The reason is we’ll read news accounts and we get different stories.

“The Army is not very forthcoming in terms of providing real information,” he continued. “The result is you can spend a lot of time trying to investigate the press releases without ever really getting to the point of knowing what the results and repercussions are.”

Judge Terry Tallman, head of the Morrow County Court, said the leaks in Tooele raise questions for him. The questions arise both because the Utah incinerator leaked, and because the Army took nearly four hours to notify the local communities of the incident.

“One of the things I’m looking at is that the Army has assured us over and over that nothing can get out of these incinerators,” Tallman said. “Now, with what happened at Tooele, it looks like they were wrong.”

Tallman said he isn’t interested in pointing fingers, he just wants the Army to take responsibility for its mistake and move to correct it. Ever since construction began on the incineration complex at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, the Army has stressed that the design here will be an improvement on Tooele and Johnston Atoll, the initial test incinerator in the Pacific, due to lessons learned at both facilities.

Quiet public

A worker at the Umatilla Chemical Stockpile Outreach Office said the office has received few public inquiries of the Utah incident. And while a Utah congressman is calling for a hearing on the leaks, Oregon’s congressional delegation has been quiet about the incident.

Greg Mahall, with the Army’s Program Manager for Chemical Disposal, said he was surprised by Oregon’s reticence. He speculated that Alabama’s population near its depot – about 75,000 people – may give reason for its increased voice. Oregon has about 19,000 people living within eight miles of the Umatilla depot.

Cindy Beatty of Irrigon, who lives about 10 minutes downwind of the incinerator, said she was surprised more people haven’t been following the Tooele incident. She has a few neighbors who worry about the incinerator plant and the weapons stored at the depot – her 11-year-old son even bought himself a gas mask – but the Tooele leaks rarely come up in conversation, she added.

John Spomer, a Hermiston dentist, said that after efforts to keep the incinerator out of Oregon failed years ago, the anti-incineration voices dwindled.

“There is a mentality that the Army can do no wrong in an area like this,” said Spomer, who admits his own energy to fight the project has waned. He acknowledges that an easy answer for disposing of the weapons may not exist, but like others, he feels incineration may be one more thing the Pentagon can mess up.

Karyn Jones, a local anti-incineration activist, said many people have clammed up because they feel the government isn’t listening to their concerns.

“We should be asking local politicians why they aren’t more concerned,” Jones said. “That’s their responsibility, and if they’re not taking actions, then maybe in the next election we’ll be getting new representatives.”

Jones, Spomer and Beatty are some of 21 local plaintiffs on a lawsuit to revoke the depot’s permit to burn chemical weapons.

The leaks

Four separate investigations of the Tooele incident – from the Army Safety Center, Tooele facility contractor EG&G, the Centers for Disease Control and one from the state of Utah – are expected to be completed as soon as next week. But two congressmen from Alabama are calling for a private study.

Especially disturbing to Alabama’s congressman was the apparent lack of training or discipline that on May 8 led to two alarming lapses in Army procedure.

First, facility operators at Utah waited four hours before calling Tooele County emergency officials. The first release of nerve agent vapor happened at 11:36 p.m., and the Tooele Department of Environmental Quality wasn’t called until 3 a.m. Procedure is to call officials within minutes of an incident. Army staff told Calhoun County Commissioners the problem could be corrected with additional training.

Second, operators restarted a burner before the furnace system had been cleared of agent, again violating procedure and causing a second release early in the morning of May 9.

The Umatilla incinerator plant, as well as those in Alabama and Arkansas, have “knife valves” designed to stop air flow from the weapons kilns if a problem is detected. Additionally, Oregon requires its plant to have carbon filters in the chimneys as an extra precaution.

Wayne Thomas, program administrator for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, told a citizens oversight group on Thursday night that the Tooele leak could likely have been prevented had carbon filters been installed there.

However, a 1998 study by the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the system “does not reduce the risk from accidents related to agent stack release.” Further, it says the system “could act as a reservoir for toxic pollutants (and possibly small quantities of chemical agent) that could subsequently be released in concentrated quantities during ‘new’ accidents.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.