The fight for impact aid in Umatilla and Morrow counties appeared to have cooled off – until Hermiston Mayor Frank Harkenrider learned that county commissioners in Alabama are seeking $70 million for residents living near an incinerator complex there.

Harkenrider, a forthright proponent of impact aid for the two Oregon counties, said he will be watching Alabama’s request closely.

“If they get it, we’re damn sure going to get it,” Harkenrider said on Wednesday.

“Impact aid” is the term for federal money to offset the impact of the Umatilla Chemical Depot’s incinerator complex in Umatilla and Morrow counties. Because the $604 million facility is on federal land, the counties receive no property taxes. But both counties feel the impacts of workers and their families on public infrastructure and services such as roads, housing and schools.

The counties are seeking $50 million – $20 million for Morrow and $30 million for Umatilla. The U.S. Army says it can’t pay towns near the nation’s disposal sites without congressional authority.

Though the Army denies it, local governments insist a precedent exists. In 1996, $12 million was paid to Tooele County, Utah, which stores about 44 percent of the nation’s chemical weapons. An Army official said those fees were part of a settlement for a legal dispute.

Commissioners from Calhoun County, Ala., are also banking on the “Tooele precedent.” The commission asked two Alabama congressmen to pressure the Pentagon for money.

Tooele’s incinerator, which is currently shut down, has been operating for four years and is the model for both Oregon’s and Alabama’s complexes. Both should be completed within the next year or two.

In a letter to their congressmen, the commissioners noted that Tooele County has only 1,200 residents within a nine-mile radius of the incinerator complex.

“We, in turn, have an incinerator and a chemical weapons stockpile located less than five miles from downtown Anniston and the prevailing winds run straight from the incinerator into town,” says their letter, which was reported in the Birmingham News.

Anniston is home to about 29,000 people.