Print
Email Story
HERMISTON -- The state of Oregon has fined URS, the contractor operating the incinerator at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, $111,000.
Most of the fine is for violations of the facility's hazardous waste and air contaminant discharge permits as it began to burn mustard weapons agent and the agent containers. The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility has not incinerated any chemical weapons agent or containers for 40 days while it addresses the issue.
"They are delaying operations to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Rich Duval of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's Chemical Demilitarization Program in Hermiston.
URS's Washington Demilitarization Co. reported the problems to the state, including eight occasions when the plant exceeded its emissions limit for carbon monoxide as it began incinerating mustard agent.
The plant exceeded limits for four to 33 minutes in the eight incidents between July 30 and Oct. 26, said Hal McCune, protocol manager for the facility.
Carbon monoxide emissions are an indication that not enough oxygen is in the furnace to promote complete combustion, Duval said. Too much carbon monoxide indicates a furnace is not operating efficiently to break down materials, he said. That raises concerns about what is released from the plant stacks.
The emissions incidents also emphasize the need to have operators making corrections quickly and adequately, the state said.
However, the state and the contractor both are confident that emissions did not harm the environment nor the people who live nearby. Workers also were not harmed, McCune said.
"Our goal is to be compliant with all environmental requirements all the time," McCune said. "We are not perfect, but we have compiled an excellent safety and compliance record."
Work began last summer to incinerate mustard agent after the last of the depot's nerve agent was incinerated in November 2008.
Duval believes the problems occurred because it was difficult to keep workers sharp during the many months required to change over from destroying nerve agent to mustard agent.
"They've taken great strides in tightening things up since events occurred this summer," Duval said.
About $80,000 of the fine was for the carbon monoxide issue.
An additional $6,600 was charged for failing to investigate fully the cause of excess carbon monoxide emissions that caused the automatic feed of waste at the plant to stop. The state said the contractor failed to take timely and appropriate action to stop future feed cutoffs and to record the findings in its operating record.
The fine included $10,000 for a separate incident in which the weight limit for waste fed to the incinerator was exceeded because a worker incorrectly read and recorded a number. The waste was already in the incinerator and could not be removed once the problem was discovered.
In July, the plant sent six tankers of residue from the wet scrubber in its emissions system to Idaho for further treatment without determining if the residue was hazardous, the state said. That resulted in $9,600 of the fine.
The company should have determined whether the 332,100 pounds of residue from a sodium hydroxide and water brine contained a high concentration of arsenic, according to the state.
The Idaho facility was equipped to handle the arsenic, so there was no danger to the public, McCune said. Steps have been taken to ensure proper paperwork for all future brine shipments, he said.
The remainder of the fine, $4,800, was for failing to notify the state and other authorities for several months that the contractor had a new emergency coordinator as regulations required.
The contractor has until Dec. 22 to appeal the penalties.
It does not expect to restart incineration of mustard or the one-ton containers that hold it for at least 45 days. Operating the plant without weapons incineration costs the government about $400,000 a day.
w Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@tricityherald.com.
