Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit to block incinerating ton containers of mustard gas at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

Filed by attorneys for the Government Accountability Project, or GAP, the lawsuit wants a judge to determine if decisions by the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality were in the best interests of Umatilla and Morrow county residents.

GAP filed the lawsuit on behalf of GASP, a Hermiston environmental group; the Oregon Wildlife Federation; the Sierra Club; and several residents of Umatilla and Morrow counties.

The environmental groups contend that neither the commission nor the department took into account evidence indicating the risk of cancer to humans posed by the incineration plan was significant and exceeded Oregon’s acceptable risk standards.

“Concerned groups and individuals who have been watch-dogging Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility have finally forced the EQC and DEQ to make clear how what methods they intend to approve to dispose of the mercury-contaminated mustard ton containers,” said Richard Condit, GAP senior counsel. “Not surprisingly, the plan is not safe or protective of the environment; instead it totally caves in to the Army’s wish list.”

More than 60 percent – 2,635 ton containers – of the chemical warfare agent stockpile at the Umatilla Chemical Depot is bulk-stored mustard agent. Condit said it was announced several years ago that portions of the mustard agent ton containers were contaminated with “dangerous” quantities of mercury. The group believes neutralizing the mustard would be safer than incinerating it.

“If incinerated,” Condit said, “the mercury would not be fully captured by the filter systems currently in place or planned for the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. While other technologies exist for destroying the agent in a much safer manner, the Oregon departments have pushed, at the Army’s request, the use of incineration.”

Neutralization is not necessarily the answer, said Rich Duval, administrator in the Hermiston DEQ office. He said his office looked at the best available technology for Umatilla and determined incineration was the best approach.

“The EQC agreed,” Duval said. “We already have a $2 billion facility; do we want to build another billion dollar facility. Even if we go to neutralization, it (a new facility) would take seven years to get ready.”

The mustard ton containers stored at Umatilla are deteriorating – most of the “leakers” during the past few years have been from mustard ton containers – and Duval is concerned that one of the plugs on the containers may “shoot across an igloo,” possibly causing an explosion of mustard.

Even with neutralization, the end product still has to be incinerated, Duval said. While neutralization has been used on the mustard stored at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland – the only munition stored at the facility – Wendell Wrzesinski, deputy site project manager at the Umatilla Depot, said because Umatilla had multiple chemical agents to dispose of, incineration was considered the best bet.

“The facility was designed holistically (for all the munitions),” Wrzesinski said.

The Tooele, Utah, facility is incinerating mustard ton containers, he said. Facility crews have installed a carbon pollution abatement system similar to what Umatilla has. The Umatilla facility’s pollution abatement system uses carbon filters to bind organic materials to the carbon. An commission decision in August requires the Army to install sulfur-impregnated carbon filters, which will bind the mercury to them.

“We are confident we can operate safely and within emission levels,” Wrzesinski said.

Because the mustard has been stored so long, settling has occurred in the containers, causing what is called heel to form inside. Various amounts of heavy solid and semi-solid residue has formed inside the containers. Wrzesinski said any ton containers with “high heel” will be transferred between ton containers using water pumped into one container and then drained into another container – all done within the innermost parts of the incineration plant.

Tooele has started the Heel Transfer System, which Umatilla also will use, to balance the heel in each container, Wrzesinski said. By doing this, the containers will not overload the metal parts furnaces.

Karyn Jones, a GASP member and Hermiston resident, said she was disappointed in state officials’ actions.

“The DEQ and EQC have totally rolled over for the Army and its contractors,” she said. “The UMCDF projects has seriously tarnished the reputation and independence of the DEQ and EQC. The agencies have not even required the Army to test the contents of the mustard ton containers, so they have no real facts to back up their assumptions about this part of the stockpile. I am simply disgusted!”

While state agencies have not required testing on the ton containers stored at Umatilla, Wrzesinski said the Tooele facility sampled for mercury each of the 6,000-plus mustard ton containers stored there. Because the Army knows where the mustard containers in the nation’s stockpile came from, said Bruce Henrickson, Army spokesman at Umatilla, it knows which ton containers contain mercury.

“Each container has a unique lot number,” he said. “The source is the same – the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.”