U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

64–491 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND PREPAREDNESS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 16, 1999

Serial No. 106–117

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

CARLA J. MARTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

JIM TURNER, Texas

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

RANDY KAPLAN, Counsel

GRANT NEWMAN, Clerk

TREY HENDERSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on August 16, 1999 ........................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Bacon, James L., Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization, Department of the Army ................................................................................... 67

de Courcy, David, Region 10 Director, Federal Emergency Management

Agency ............................................................................................................ 74

Doherty, Dennis, Umatilla County Commissioner ........................................ 28

Lee, Myra T., Director, Oregon Emergency Management ............................ 83

McCann, Thomas, mayor, city of Stanfield .................................................... 15

Minthorn, Armand, board of trustees, Confederated Tribes Umatilla ......... 36

Obermiller, Fred, Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics,

Oregon State University ............................................................................... 45

Prociv, Theodore M., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Chemical Demilitarization, Department of the Army ........................................... 60

Tallman, Terry, Morrow County Commissioner ............................................ 20

Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:

Bacon, James L., Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization, Department of the Army, prepared statement of ........................................... 71

de Courcy, David, Region 10 Director, Federal Emergency Management

Agency, prepared statement of .................................................................... 78

Doherty, Dennis, Umatilla County Commissioner, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 30

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 4

Lee, Myra T., Director, Oregon Emergency Management, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 85

McCann, Thomas, mayor, city of Stanfield, prepared statement of ............. 18

Minthorn, Armand, board of trustees, Confederated Tribes Umatilla, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 38

Obermiller, Fred, Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics,

Oregon State University, prepared statement of ....................................... 47

Prociv, Theodore M., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Chemical Demilitarization, Department of the Army, prepared statement of ... 63

Smith, Hon. Gordon H., a Senator in Congress from the State of Oregon,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 13

Tallman, Terry, Morrow County Commissioner, prepared statement of ..... 23

Walden, Hon. Greg, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Oregon, prepared statement of .................................................................... 8

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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND

PREPAREDNESS

MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Hermiston, OR.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in the

Hermiston Armory, 900 Southeast Columbia Drive, Hermiston, OR,

Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn and Walden.

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel;

Randy Kaplan, counsel; Grant Newman, clerk; Jeff Eager, legislative assistant to Representative Walden; and Trey Henderson, minority professional staff member.

Mr. HORN. A quorum being present, this hearing of the House

Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and

Technology will come to order.

And I’d like to first welcome and thank Congressman Greg Walden who has been a valued member of this committee. When I am

done with my opening statement, he will preside as chairman

today. He’s shown up at all of our sessions. He asks first rate questions.

Mr. MINTHORN. We can’t hear.

Mr. HORN. OK. That’s what I asked when we started. Can you

hear us in the back row? If you can’t, put your hands up.

OK. You are independent Oregonians, so I figure you are not

bashful. So just put your hands up. Mr. Walden has been a great

addition to this committee.

This is an investigatory committee of the House of Representatives. We hold more hearings than any committee in the House, because we have jurisdiction over the whole executive branch.

And I am going to go through my opening statement, and then

Mr. Walden will preside the rest of the day, since he knows all of

you and he knows how the committee works.

And I want to thank also at this point the Oregon National

Guard for lending us the use of this wonderful facility. I must say,

I have been, as an Army Reserve member, I’ve been into a lot of

Reserve and National Guard facilities. I’ve never seen one as beautiful as this. So whoever did it, you ought to keep that architect in

the Federal Government, because some of our facilities are ugly

and awful. This is not. So, thank you.

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Mr. HORN. The United States possesses more than 31,000 tons

of obsolete chemical weapons. This stockpile of weapons is stored

at eight sites in the Continental United States and at an additional

site on the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

I have landed there a number of times. It’s about maybe 10 of

these Armories. It’s a pretty short runway.

And the stockpile consists of nerve and blister agents stored in

rockets, bombs and bulk storage containers.

In an effort to eliminate these weapons, the U.S. Congress

passed a law requiring the Department of Defense to develop and

implement a plan to destroy its chemical weapons and agents. This

law directs the Department of Defense to destroy the U.S. stockpile

of lethal chemical weapons while providing maximum protection to

the environment, the public, and the personnel involved in disposing of the munitions.

In 1997 the Senate ratified the chemical weapons convention, an

International treaty banning the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons, commits member nations to

dispose of their chemical weapons stockpile by April 29, 2007.

To comply with the mandates of the law and meet the 2007 deadline, the Department of the Army established the Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program. This program is designed to remove the

threat posed to nearby communities by continued storage of chemical weapons. The Army projects the program cost will be approximately $15 billion through the 2007 deadline. Thus far approximately $8 billion has been appropriated for the program.

Because of the dangers associated with the chemical weapons,

both to humans and to the environment, the program has been controversial and has experienced delays, cost increases, and management weaknesses.

At today’s hearing we will discuss the management of the Chemical Weapons Disposal Program at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, located a few short miles from where we are today. The Army faces

a number of challenges as it begins the process of disposing of the

more than 3,700 tons of chemical agents at the Umatilla Depot.

Given the stakes involved in such an endeavor, the Army must

ensure that the nearby communities are prepared for any emergency resulting from an accidental leakage of chemical agents. To

ensure the safety of local communities, the Army established the

Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program. The Army

shares the management of this program with the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA].

In recent years, there has been concern over the management

and implementation of the Emergency Preparedness Program. The

General Accounting Office, which is the audit arm both financially

and programmatically for the Congress, it’s part of the legislative

branch, and the General Accounting Office, otherwise referred to as

GAO, is our watch dog, and they reported in June 1997 that communities located near the storage sites lacked items critical to responding to a chemical emergency. The General Accounting Office

attributed some of the programs’ problems to management weaknesses, including disagreement between the Army and the Federal

Emergency Management Agency over their respective roles and responsibilities.

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Local communities, including communities surrounding the

Umatilla Depot, expressed concern that money allocated for emergency services and equipment was never received. Today we will

ask what has been done by the Army, what has been done by the

Federal Emergency Management Agency, and what has been done

by the Oregon Emergency Management agency to ensure the safety

of the local communities.

Another challenge faced by the Army is ensuring that the disposal program is completed on time. Two sites, the Johnston Atoll

in the Pacific and the chemical disposal facility in Tooele, UT, have

begun incineration of their chemical weapons. However, as of

March of this year, only 4,259 tons, or 131⁄2 percent of the total

stockpile, have been destroyed. It is imperative that these chemical

weapons are disposed of in a safe, efficient and timely manner. The

longer the weapons sit in storage, the more unstable and dangerous they become. Construction of the disposal facility at

Umatilla site has begun. The Army estimates that disposal operations will begin in 2002, and will be complete by 2006. Today we

will ask whether this timetable can be met.

Another issue of concern is the disposal program’s impact on the

local economy. The construction of the incinerator is bringing new

jobs to the area. At the same time, however, it is placing increasing

demands on government services and the public infrastructure. The

disposal facility is scheduled to close down for good once the project

is complete. Today we will ask what can be done to assist nearby

communities avoid the potential negative impact of this temporary

government project.

May I say, I come from a city where everything has been closed

down by the U.S. Navy. It was once the headquarters of the Pacific

fleet, and had the most productive economic Naval shipyard in the

history of the United States. Didn’t matter. Closed them all. So I

know what you’re going through as a possible situation here in

terms of unemployment.

At perhaps a cost of $15 billion, the chemical stockpile disposal

project is one of the largest Defense Department programs. Successful completion of this program, in a safe and timely manner,

is dependent on proper management. There must also be close cooperation and coordination between the interested partners, including the various Federal, State and local government entities, as

well as the local communities.

We have here with us today two distinguished panels of witnesses who will address many of the issues surrounding this

project. Panel one includes representatives from the surrounding

communities. Panel two consists of representatives from the Federal Government, Army Federal Emergency Management Agency,

representatives of the State of Oregon.

And so once again I want to thank Representative Walden and

his staff for helping us organize this meeting on such short notice

and I now yield to the gentleman from Oregon to preside over and

chair this meeting.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Horn, I greatly appreciate your willingness to respond to my

request to hold this subcommittee hearing here in Hermiston to

take a look at these important issues you’ve outlined and ones that

are certainly shared by the community here. I also want to thank

everyone who has turned out today for this hearing. I know how

busy it is this time of year especially, but I think it shows the interest level surrounding this issue of storage and incineration of

chemical weapons at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

Before I start, I’d like to give special thanks again to Chairman

Horn who has come a great deal out of his way during a busy time

to bring his unrivaled reputation and expertise in Federal oversight

to our corner of Oregon.

I would also like to thank General Burgin and Colonel Caldwell

of the Oregon National Guard for providing us with this room and

being so helpful in setting it up for this hearing, and certainly Rick

Tunstead as well, who is over here, who has helped make everything possible, and my friend and former colleague, Chuck Norris,

who is here today, who has been very helpful as well, and for

whom this room is named. Chuck of course used to be the Colonel

at the Depot.

You’ve heard already about what is stored out at the Depot, and

you know the issues there. One of the primary purposes of this

hearing is to oversee how the Federal Government’s working with

the State of Oregon and local officials to prepare the residents of

the surrounding area in case of an accidental chemical release.

In the past several years residents have raised concerns about

the Federal Government’s use of funds that were appropriated by

Congress to fund emergency preparedness around the Umatilla and

other chemical weapons storage sites. So I look forward to hearing

from local witnesses about the status of the emergency preparedness in this area. The Federal and State witnesses on the second

panel can then inform us of their efforts to ensure that local communities are safe from chemical disaster.

Also this morning we will focus on the issue of how the Umatilla

project, especially the increased activities surrounding the construction and operation of the incinerator, is impacting the local

economy and government services. Community officials have indicated in the past that roads, schools and other services may be

overused and strained to the limit for a short period of time and

sort of boom/bust economy as the incinerator workers flood the

area. Because the Federal Government does not pay taxes on the

land it owns, the increased use of public services will not be balanced by an increase in local property tax payments. Then, when

the facility is closed in 2006, communities may be left maintaining

extra capacity in their services, leaving the local property taxpayers with the bill. This issue of economic impact is one that requires cooperation among the local, State, and Federal officials to

ensure that all are aware of the problems faced by local citizens

and that a plan can be developed to address these problems.

This morning we will hear from an economist who has done research into the issue of the economic impacts surrounding the

Depot as well as local and Federal officials who will express their

views on impact aid. I hope that this process will forge a greater

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understanding of the options available to communities as they try

to cope with the substantial economic changes they are undergoing

as a result of playing host to a chemical weapons disposal facility.

A third issue that will be addressed is the fact that the House

of Representatives has passed an appropriations bill that would cut

some $388 million out of the Army’s Chemical Demilitarization

Program. Because I’m concerned about what effects this cut might

have for the Umatilla facility, I sent a letter to members of the Appropriations Committee, asking them to fund the program at a

level that allows for the timely disposal of chemical weapons that

become more and more unstable the longer they are stored. I hope

to hear from the Army about what the proposed cuts to the program would mean for Umatilla in terms of increased risk of disaster as well as employment and possible changes to economic impact.

I look forward to a full airing of the information and views surrounding the Umatilla facility. I firmly believe that with Chairman

Horn’s help, we can do some very effective oversight this morning

to bring all interested parties together to focus on the challenges

that remain to ensure the chemical weapons disposal process is

carried out safely, timely, and with a sensitivity to the needs of the

citizens of the communities that surround Umatilla County.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Greg Walden follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. At this time I would like to ask unanimous consent

of the committee to insert in the record comments from Senator

Gordon Smith. He has submitted written testimony for our concern, and without objection, I would ask that that be inserted in

the record. So ordered.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Gordon H. Smith follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Now, then if I could have the witnesses stand, it

is the policy of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee

to swear in all witnesses who testify, and if you have staff people

with you who you think you may call, they should stand at this

time, as well, and take an oath for the committee. If you would

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you. I would also like to suggest that we do

have your full written statements, and so if you are willing to summarize your remarks in the 5 minutes or so allotted for each one,

then we will have more time for the Q and A. And we have asked

questions of each panel, and we will ask all members of the panel

to offer their completed remarks.

We will also be circulating note cards into the audience from the

committee’s staff for any audience members who want to submit a

question to be asked, as well. I must point out that in most congressional hearings that is not something that’s offered up. So I

commend the chairman for his willingness to open it up to the public to submit questions from the audience that we will then pose

to the committee members. And just so everyone knows, the

timeline, I believe we are supposed to be wrapped up by 11:30 so

that you can get back in time to catch a flight back to your district.

So, with that, I will get the list here. Where is the witness list?

And we will start with the mayor of the city of Stanfield, the Honorable Tom McCann. Good morning and welcome.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS McCANN, MAYOR, CITY OF

STANFIELD

Mr. MCCANN. Good morning. Chairman Horn, Mr. Walden, members of the subcommittee.

My name is Thomas J. McCann. And I am honored to represent

the mayors of the city of Boardman, Irrigon, Echo, Hermiston,

Stanfield, and Umatilla. We appreciate your coming here to facilitate these proceedings and to listen to our concerns.

The cities of western Umatilla County and north Morrow County

are primarily concerned with the safety our residents in the event

of an incident at the Umatilla Chemical Depot that would cause

the release of toxic agents. While FEMA and the State of Oregon

has received large funding amounts and are probably ready to handle an emergency from a management and oversight standpoint, it

is the local communities, in conjunction with our respective counties, that will be the first line of defense for area citizens. Even the

local Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program has

most of the resources in place, from a command and control perspective, to function at their level in the event a release at UCD.

What is lacking in all of this is direct funding to the cities of Stanfield, Echo, Hermiston, Umatilla, Irrigon, and Boardman. There are

a number of areas of ongoing concern that I would like to discuss

with you today.

First and foremost is the lack of capacity in these small rural

communities to deal with the enormity of the issues we are faced

with due to the disposal project at UCD. Without any help from the

Federal Government in the form of impact aid, our small towns

have or are preparing to build the infrastructure needed to service

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the increase in population that is a direct result of the construction

and operation of the disposal facility. These commitments from the

local communities include new water systems, waste water systems, road improvements, and new school facilities. The total fiscal

impact on these six communities for capital and operating cost is

estimated to be at $30.7 million. These costs are directly attributable to UCD. The cost to local taxpayers for these improvements

will go on long after the Depot has closed down and those residents

associated with this project have left, typically for a total of 20 to

30 years. This means that the remaining residents will bear this

burden for the Federal Government for many years after this facility has ceased operations.

In a setting where local governments and citizens are already

taxed beyond what is fair, we still have a large number of safety

concerns that need to be addressed before incineration operations

can begin. It is important to all of us that this project not be delayed any longer than necessary, as there are 105,000 rockets alone

stored at UCD that get more unstable with each day. No one can

quantitatively determine how long it will be before these reach a

point of total instability. But before we can feel comfortable about

beginning incineration at UCD, there are a number of safety-related issues that must be addressed.

The most critical of these safety issues is our lack of adequate

police and fire personnel to respond in the event of an emergency.

FEMA, the State of Oregon, and CSEPP have tried to place responsibility on the local governments to perform a number of needed actions, without supplying the necessary funding, training and equipment. A primary example is the expectation that local police will

provide security for the school buildings that are over-pressurized,

aid in the orderly evacuation of residents where required, and man

local traffic control points. There are approximately 103 full-time

and reserve officers in our area. Due to vacations, sick leave, training out of the area, we could expect a maximum of 30 officers to

be on duty at one time to cover the six cities and two county areas

that would be affected. It is unreasonable to assume that these officers could provide the needed security at their school sites, aid in

evacuation, and man several traffic control points. In addition, the

chemical protection suits that are proposed have proven to be woefully inadequate in local field trials. These same types of problems

confront the local fire districts that depend primarily or in some

cases solely on volunteers. How can these small departments be expected to respond to the chemical emergency, aid in the evacuation

of homebound residents, and handle all other calls that are sure to

surface in the face of a major disaster? To compound this problem

is the issue of civil disobedience that often follows in the footsteps

of any large emergencies. Who will be left to protect the lives and

property in our towns if they are all off performing other duties?

There are possible solutions to many of our concerns, but due to

time constraints I will not go into detail. I could provide this information on request.

We, the communities most at risk feel the Federal Government,

through FEMA, the State of Oregon and the local CSEPP need to

look at where their budget dollars have been spent to date, and

why more attention has not been focused on the local jurisdictions

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that will be the first responders in the event of a disaster at the

Depot. The large emergency infrastructure that has been developed

will be great for information dissemination and strategic command,

but little to nothing has been spent on the local agencies that will

be expected to face the reality of a chemical emergency directly.

Without proper manpower levels, training, equipment and environmentally safe local command centers, how will FEMA, the State

and CSEPP deal with an emergency of this magnitude? Thank you

very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McCann follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mayor. Let’s go down to Mr. Terry

Tallman, who is a Morrow County commissioner. Good morning

and welcome.

STATEMENT OF TERRY TALLMAN, MORROW COUNTY

COMMISSIONER

Mr. TALLMAN. Good morning. I want to thank you very much for

coming to the town of Hermiston letting us speak our concerns. I

have with me staff from Morrow County, Casey Beard, our emergency director, Emergency Management director, Tamara Mabbott,

our planning director, and Bill Myers, an attorney for special

projects for Morrow County. My name is Terry Tallman. I am the

Morrow County judge, a member of Morrow County Court.

I want to thank you for taking the time to hear our concerns and

for coming out to Eastern Oregon, a very distinct and unique part

of the great Northwest. Today I’m here to express concerns and ask

for your help as the communities of Morrow and Umatilla County

deal with the impact the Umatilla Chemical Depot incinerator

project has on this region.

There are many contentious issues associated with the depot, the

chemical stockpile program, the Emergency Preparedness Program,

and alternative technologies. I will focus my comments today on

the socioeconomic and fiscal impacts the program has on our communities.

Many of the things that I’m saying here probably will be somewhat redundant. I hope you will not be offended by my reiterating

some of your comments.

Since the early 1960’s the U.S. Army has stockpiled some 12 percent of the Nation’s most deadly chemical weapons at the Umatilla

Chemical Depot, which does lie within the borders of both Umatilla

and Morrow Counties. Of those weapons, 70 percent, including

nerve agents and blister agents as you have mentioned, are in Morrow County. Literally the back yard of the most populated region

of our county.

What has the attitude of our residents been toward these chemical weapons being placed at the Depot? One might expect to hear

complaints and outcries about the chemical weapons, but history

has proven to the contrary. They are extremely patriotic and dutiful in their role as hosts. Local residents have been remarkably

supportive of the Depot, tolerance of the presence of deadly chemical weapons and trusting of the Army, even though many people

work just across a wire fence from the Depot. Our communities

have been exemplary or their tolerance and hospitality. And I am

proud to represent those citizens of Morrow County today.

Residents of Morrow and Umatilla Counties were never asked

permission to store these weapons, and never protested or even

questioned the Army’s actions. The Army never informed local communities of a danger from these chemical weapons, and the majority of citizens were not even aware of any potential harm. Storage

was characterized as a relatively safe situation, safe enough in fact,

that communities were told that there wasn’t any need to acquire

emergency or safety equipment.

As the need for these weapons changed and we came into the

international chemical weapons treaty and an order was signed by

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Congress ordering the Army to eliminate those chemical weapons,

we supported that treaty and the attendant disposal program. Our

communities have actively participated in the CSEPP program and

are preparing our communities for any potential accident at the

Depot. It was through our participation in this federally mandated

CSEPP program that we began to notice how our communities

were impacted. Elected and appointed officials began to see dramatically increased personnel hours dedicated to the program. Police and fire departments as has been mentioned particularly had

drastically increased equipment and staffing needs with many of

these needs being met completely by volunteer forces. While

CSEPP slowly began to fund most of these Emergency Preparedness Program costs, we also began to recognize other costs that

were not reimbursed.

One of the most insidious costs is the form of population growth

and the bust and boom impact it has on an economy, as Congressman Walden mentions. The short-term increase in workers on the

project is actually a cost rather than a fiscal asset to our county.

Being transient, construction workers tend to rent rather than

own. But all of the workers do send their children to our schools

and our roads and use our infrastructure. Most of the longer term

and higher level management employees for this project actually

live in the tri-county Washington area, where they are participating as more permanent residents in that local economy.

In Morrow County we have seen very little benefit of that

growth. We have minimal industrial or commercial sectors that

could benefit from direct, indirect or induced spending. We have

found numerous studies which corroborate the experience of a negative impact to local governments and economies. These studies

show the negative impact to be compounded in rural economies.

The impact of this incinerator project is accentuated by the fact

that the Army pays no property taxes, no corporate taxes, and no

local income taxes. The State and Federal Governments on the

other hand do receive revenues from income taxes. And in addition

to these foregone tax revenues the Army and its contractors were

exempt from local land use permits, which is the typical forum for

levying and collecting impact funds or other mitigation moneys.

We have worked diligently over the past several years, my predecessors in this county have worked diligently to develop a solution

to this problem of local taxpayers underwriting a Federal project.

To put it bluntly, our experience with the Army has been frustrating at best. The Army has delayed and sometimes misinformed.

And I know these are strong words to use against the Army, but

a few examples illustrate my point by saying, that one Army official told my predecessor and some staff, there is a way for you to

get money, but I can’t tell you how. In 1997, a Congressman, a national Congressman, proposed legislation that would address the

problem and set aside impact money for affected communities, but

withdrew the legislation after meeting with Army officials who convinced him to drop the legislation because we are working on that

problem.

At our request, the 1997 Oregon legislature unanimously approved a law that allowed counties to charge a fee for storage and

handling of the wastes. The Army refused to comply with the law,

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citing Federal sovereignty, which is ironic, since a similar law was

honored in Tooele County, UT. In essence, the Army claims to be

exempt from all of the traditional tools for taxing growth, to underwriting community services and infrastructure, such as roads, sewers, water systems and schools.

One other item I would like to mention. Our primary concern is

with the negative socioeconomic impacts of the demilitarization

project, but we do want to express grave concerns with the CSEPP

funding process. Federal officials have imposed a process called a

life cycle cost estimate, which dramatically underfunds preparedness activities. This life cycle cost estimate process is flawed. The

counties have never agreed to these estimates, but now they are

being imposed upon them. Nor has these estimates been revised to

reflect current needs and realities and prior years have been seriously underfunded. If allowed to stay, projected budget limits will

prevent the achievement and maintenance necessary to allow adequate emergency preparedness at the county level for demilitarization facility.

In concluding, I would like to ask for your help in compelling the

Army and other Federal agencies to provide appropriate compensation for the costs and impacts our citizens have tolerated. Incineration of chemical weapons is not a local problem, it is a national

problem. Morrow County taxpayers are not looking for a windfall.

We don’t see the Army as the golden goose who lays the golden

egg. We simply want to bear our fair share, but we only want to

bear the fair share of the cost. We believe Federal action confers

Federal responsibility and Federal impact requires Federal compensation.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tallman follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Judge. Let’s go now to Umatilla County

commissioner, Mr. Dennis Doherty. Good morning and welcome.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS DOHERTY, UMATILLA COUNTY

COMMISSIONER

Mr. DOHERTY. Mr. Chairman, good morning. My name is Dennis

Doherty. I live in Hermiston, inside the Depot IRZ. That’s the ‘‘immediate response zone.’’ I am one of three Umatilla County Commissioners. Chairman Emile Holeman and Commissioner Bill Hansell are the others. I speak my own thoughts today. They were completed just last night, so my colleagues have not previewed them.

There are four component parts of the chemical demilitarization

program: Continued safe storage, emergency preparedness, destruction of the chemical agents, and program support, which necessarily includes impact aid to the local communities.

When the Army was given the chemical demil mission in 1986,

Congress added explicit direction that the program provide for

maximum protection of the environment, the public and the Depot

workers.

CSEPP was established by the Army in 1988. The stated purpose

was to help the communities near the stockpile enhance their existing emergency management and response capabilities. To this day,

13 years later, we don’t have a reliable comprehensive warning system. The first responders cannot go into a risk area. Insofar as I

know, the Army does not have a plan for the 1,300 to 1,500 workers now onsite other than to evacuate them, which then makes

them our responsibility.

Mr. Chairman, managment from the county, the State capitol,

FEMA Region 10 in Seattle and FEMA Headquarters in Washington, DC, may or may not help if we ever do have a real accident.

But one thing is for sure. Those people, in their safe havens many

miles away, won’t be able to do any on-the-ground response during

the emergency. That will be left to our small towns, schools, rural

fire protection districts and the people who are in harm’s way.

It’s a sad but true fact that a CSEPP program which promised

to enhance local emergency management response capability has

delivered so little and taken so long to do even that.

Maybe you’ve heard this homily: If you go on doing things the

way you’ve always done them, you will go on getting the results

you have always gotten.

Our citizens deserve better than they’ve gotten. We don’t want

hype, we need Congress to require Army and FEMA to simply deliver maximum protection as they were told to do in 1986. If they

can’t, then give the money to the local communities to do their own

enhancement.

Regarding impact aid, please remember that we’ve been down

this path before. When the Depot was constructed in 1941 and

1942, workers needed homes. They hauled ammo boxes off and

built houses out of them. They hauled pallets off for building materials. They built where and what they could afford. They dozed out

homesites and roads in the sand. We didn’t have the time or the

resources to build nice planned towns. We still, to this day, have

miles of unimproved streets, both inside and outside of town. You

don’t build communities in the 21st century cheaply. To a large deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:12 Aug 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64491.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gree, that’s because of State and Federal requirements. Improved

streets cost $150 to $200 per running foot. Water systems, waste

water systems and schools cost millions.

We know. Umatilla, a city that had only a $95 million tax base

at the time, bonded itself for well over $15 million recently for

these infrastructure improvements. Hermiston voters recently approved a $40 million bond for school upgrades. We have concerns

that these community debt obligations may overwhelm us if we

then experience a bust economy when the Depot jobs disappear, as

they will by 2007. Mr. Chairman, I will conclude with these statements for the record, directed at the impact aid issue. It’s the

Army’s nerve gas and the Army’s incinerator. Raytheon is the

Army’s contractor and the Raytheon workers are doing the Army’s

disposal job. The Army could be housing these workers and picking

up the tab directly. They’re not. We’re doing that for them. The

Army needs to pay its share of our bills for this. That means impact aid, either from money already appropriated or from new appropriations. There won’t be a healthy and vital chemical demil

program until Congress has cured that problem.

Denial of the responsibility to pay impact aid is not defensible.

The status quo is not acceptable. Doing nothing is not an option.

The impact bills are due. This incinerator is the Army’s baby. It’s

time for the Army to face up to its responsibilities and pay support.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Your presence with us today is an

honor. We appreciate the opportunity this hearing presents for us.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Doherty follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Let’s go now

to Mr. Armand Minthorn, who is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. Good morning, welcome.

STATEMENT OF ARMAND MINTHORN, BOARD OF TRUSTEES,

CONFEDERATED TRIBES UMATILLA

Mr. MINTHORN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. And members of

the committee.

Mr. WALDEN. You may want to make sure that microphone is a

little closer and turned on. Thank you.

Mr. MINTHORN. My name is Armand Minthorn. I am a member

of the Board of Trustees of the governing body of the Confederated

Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Thank you for the opportunity to identify some of our concerns

regarding the proposal to incinerate over 3,700 tons of mustard and

nerve agents, all weapons of mass destruction.

I’d like to first welcome you to the homeland of the three Columbia Basin plateau Tribes that comprise the CTUIR, including the

Cayuse, Walla Walla, and Umatilla. The three Tribes signed the

treaty of 1855 with the U.S. Government that outlined a territory

of approximately 6.4 million acres of ceded land where treaty reserve rights are retained, including fishing, hunting, gathering of

plants and pasturing livestock. These rights extend throughout today’s Northeast Oregon and Southeast Washington state. In addition, the treaty of 1855 established the Umatilla Indian Reservation 8 miles east of Pendleton where our thriving economy is now

recognized as the largest in Umatilla and Morrow Counties.

The CTUIR issued a letter to Governor Kitzhaber in February

1996 requesting that he deny the Army’s permit request until certain conditions are met, and those conditions are outlined in your

handout. I would like to continue to express concerns and technical

concerns the tribe has, and they are as follows: No. 1, Emergency

Preparedness and transportation. No. 2, environmental and health

monitoring. No. 3, carbon filter. No. 4, dunnage incinerator. And

last, impact aid.

Emergency preparedness. The tribe continually presses at the

national and local level on a variety of emergency response concerns, including preparedness under the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program. Although there is progress, it is not

at the pace acceptable to the tribe. Initially the tribe was not consulted on emergency response issues because, some thought, the diminished Reservation boundary is outside the 50 kilometer emergency planning zone, a myth now reversed.

The CTUIR Fire Department is recognized as an essential component for regional emergency preparedness activities, at the Depot

and at other facilities such as Hanford.

The Tribes’ issues regarding communications and notification are

slowly progressing. For instance, other entities and fire departments are further along in the development of their communication

plans. The reason why is because CSEPP has not sufficiently followed through with their pledge to upgrade the communication systems of the Tribal Fire Department. We shouldn’t have to coordiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:12 Aug 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64491.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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nate with counties but should be dealt with directly for resources

and/or services.

Environmental and health monitoring. The Tribes’ treaty reserved rights and culture are based on the use of natural and cultural resources throughout the ceded lands and at usual and accustomed sites. As an example, the Tribes re-established salmon runs

after 70 years of extinction in the Umatilla River.

The State required the Army, through the permit process, to develop a comprehensive monitoring program. The program is set to

sample air, soil, water, flora and fauna in the three zones located

in Oregon and Washington States.

While the State and tribe have cooperated in developing the comprehensive monitoring program for the environment, there is no

human health monitoring. In terms of human health monitoring

the agents as an example organophosphates are neurological

disrupters, their original design. The Depot also in the middle of

some of the richest farm land in the area and low-level exposure

through food stuff or workplace occupations over an extended period of time should be investigated to ensure our communities that

no risk is confirmed. This should include both resident and economic customers of our products. Therefore, human monitoring

should be instituted immediately.

The CTUIR feels that it is essential that mitigation be a factor

to address threats to our treaty resources. One of the main attempts of the comprehensive monitoring program is to establish

baseline environmental monitoring before, during and after incineration, and in the event there is a deviation from that baseline,

there should be mitigation. Without human health monitoring, it

will be difficult, if not impossible, to identify mitigation measures

and remediation actions.

Carbon filter. As a permit condition, the State of Oregon Environmental Quality Commission required carbon filters for the incinerators. The filters changed the efficiency of the operation of the

incinerator and because of lack of operation at JACADS or Utah,

there is no experience or operational readiness that the Army can

use to demonstrate the effectiveness of carbon filters.

Dunnage incinerator. The Army and the State should submit for

Tribal review a storage plan for waste that was scheduled for the

dunnage incinerator. This plan should include volume types and

length of stay for these wastes as well as potential receptor facilities. In addition and in concert with the CTUIR the Army should

coordinate any transportation plans because of the majority of the

waste it is projected will be transported across the most dangerous

route in Oregon, the Blue Mountains, and the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Any proposed permit modification is a serious concern.

Finally, impact aid. The CTUIR supports the efforts of the counties and cities in their request for impact aid.

And in conclusion, these areas that have been cited as concerns

with the Tribes, this will only continue the transportation, the

emergency preparedness, environmental and health monitoring. I

thank you for your time today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Minthorn follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you for your testimony. Appreciate it.

Now for our final witness on this panel, I’d like to turn to Dr.

Fred Obermiller of the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics from Oregon State University. Dr. Obermiller, good morning, thank you for coming.

STATEMENT OF FRED OBERMILLER, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND RESOURCE ECONOMICS, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

Mr. OBERMILLER. Thank you for inviting me, it’s a pleasure to be

here, Congressman, Congressman Horn. Thank you for the opportunity.

A little while ago John Snyder said, Dr. Obermiller, what are you

doing here? You are normally talking to us about public lands

issues.

But I have another area of expertise, and that is regional economic impact analysis, and have done a study recently dealing

with the structure of the Morrow County economy.

Because of that, the county planning director and commissioners

in Morrow County asked if I would help them take a look at the

local economic impacts of this incineration project a year ago,

which we’ve done, and there’s not really enough time to talk about

it in-depth this morning, and I won’t try to do that, and I won’t

try to repeat what were I thought eloquent comments that the

mayors and commissioners made earlier.

What I will have to say deals largely with Morrow County. But

I want you to know this, that in an absolute sense, the largest community level impacts are going to be felt in northwestern Umatilla

County. In a relative sense, given the very small size of the communities and tax base, the relatively largest impacts are going to

be felt in Morrow County, northern Morrow County.

I would say that in generic terms you’re probably looking at a 12

to 15 percent population increase with attendant increase in demand on an already inadequate community infrastructure over the

duration of the project.

A couple of things about the Morrow County economy may explain why the relative impact is going to be as large as it is going

to be, is already being in Morrow County. Morrow County, which

is the 27th incorporated county in Oregon, split off from Umatilla

County in 1885. It was a farming and ranching county. And all the

infrastructure that developed in Morrow County, small as it is, centered around those two dominant industries.

So then when the Federal Government came in with a series of

major projects, like the Army Depot, the Navy Bombing Range,

McNary Dam complex, there was not an infrastructure in Morrow

County to support it. And so consequently you had short-term population increase, increase in demand for services, but there wasn’t

much of a secondary effect.

Now, when we did this Morrow County study, we came up with,

among other things, multipliers. County level multipliers normally

are in the range of about two to three, meaning that for every $1

spent in the county, you will get an additional $1 or $2 in re-spending.

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That’s not the way it is here. From that study I pulled out what

some of the multipliers are in Morrow County. And I’ll just quickly

summarize them. The household income, say, wages being spent,

multiplier is 1.57 from this study. So for every $1, you get another

57 cents, not another $1 to $2. And it gets worse. Construction.

1.28. Automotive sales and services, 1.30.

One of the major non-Federal developments in northern Morrow

County has been the advent of those big center pivot systems, since

the mid 1970’s. There is no infrastructure to support it. The multiplier for the center pivot irrigation systems is 1.29. An additional

29 cents for every $1 that’s spent.

So the point is that Morrow County is an economic wind funnel.

It’s a colony almost of Umatilla County, which is in an economic

sense what it started out being, and to a very large extent what

it still is.

So, for those reasons, when you get an additional 500 to 600 people, including kids, living in Irrigon and Boardman primarily as a

consequence of this project, there really is no boom. We call it a

boom and bust. It’s just basically a bust and bust. There’s a short

term increased demand for community services, and somehow or

another the services have been provided. When the incinerator

project is over and the workers leave, the locals are left bearing the

costs.

Here’s a quick number for you. If the Army Depot had not been

built and that land had remained on private property rolls, the

amount of property taxes collected over time would have been

about $3 million, which gives you an example of foregone local revenue as a consequence of the Federal project.

I know my time is up. I want to make a couple of comments

quickly. I think that there are both statutory and also negotiated

precedents for mitigation in the current case. We have the Payments In Lieu Of Taxes Act, 31 U.S.C. 6901. We’ve got 42 U.S.C.

3374, which deals with the acquisition of property at or near military bases, which have been ordered to be closed. We have a parallel statute which says that the Department of Defense will pay

fair market value for private grazing permits taken for war or national defense purposes. And of course we have the Tooele settlement.

So, to me it’s a moot point as to whether or not mitigation is feasible. I think it is feasible. It’s just a matter of negotiating what’s

fair. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Obermiller follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Dr. Obermiller. Now we will move into

the question phase. The staff will be circulating some cards out

into the audience. If you have a question you’d like the panel to

ask. Yes, Mayor.

Mr. HARDENRIDER. Mr. Walden, could I——

Mr. WALDEN. If you are going to, you have to be sworn.

Mr. HARDENRIDER. I was sworn in.

Mr. WALDEN. Then you need to come up to the microphone.

Mr. HARDENRIDER. I am Mayor Frank Harkenrider. I will just

take a few minutes of your time.

Welcome to Hermiston. The watermelon capital of the world.

A couple of things. What really concerns me more, all these people are right. You have 105,000 M–55 rockets located at the

Umatilla Army Depot. The National Research Council was appointed either by Congress or the President of the United States.

The best scientists in the world. They have told us for the last 14

years they are the most dangerous. Please do not cut the budget

at $380 million out here. Let’s get rid of those rockets. If you delay

and cut this budget, that delays the incineration of the rockets.

Remember, the risk of storage is greater than the risk of incineration. And it’s on your shoulders, if one of those takes off and explodes, it’s going to be terrible for this whole community and the

surrounding areas.

And I thank you for coming to Hermiston. Don’t forget those

rockets. Thank you very much.

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mayor. I want to start with some questions for our two county commissioners on the panel, and others if

they want to weigh in, in terms of the financial impact of the Depot

on your counties so far.

Have you quantified what that is? What have you spent so far?

Mr. DOHERTY. Mr. Chairman, let me address that first. Umatilla

County has done a two part study quantifying impacts. One of the

things that you have to understand about the incinerator is the

timing.

The incinerator came just at the same time that the Wal-Mart

distribution center, the railroad expansion and the State prison in

Umatilla came. So we have a compression of the impact because of

the advent of not one but four major projects in the area.

And so what we did was we formed a group in West County

called the Hermiston-Umatilla-Echo-Stanfield Study Group. The

cities and county together put up approximately $65,000, and they

did a quantification impact study of the impact of all four together.

Then in the second phase we put up approximately another

$25,000 to do a study of just the impacts that could be extrapolated

from the Depot itself. And from that study we identified the impacts on infrastructure and general government services. And from

that study we then quantified our impact aid request at $30 million. That’s what we have been requesting and what we continue

to request.

Our neighbor to the west, Morrow County, has approached it a

little bit differently, and it amounts to the same thing, and we support their request, which is $20 million.

I defer now to Commissioner Tallman, I should say Judge

Tallman, because in Morrow County they have a county judge.

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Mr. WALDEN. Judge.

Mr. TALLMAN. Yes. With some of the study that Dr. Obermiller

has mentioned, that number is approximately $20 million, probably

just a little bit less than that, but approximately $20 million.

We do not have the dollars to spend on the studies that Umatilla

County did, and we did it more with an in-house type of study, and

some with the help then of OSU, and we came up with that figure

of roughly $20 million.

Mr. HORN. If I might, I’d be curious on the projects you mentioned. Has that provided jobs for the people in the counties affected? And if so, do you have a labor shortage here, or an unemployment situation?

Mr. DOHERTY. We do have severe work force limitations in the

area. We don’t have the kind of history where going into these four

projects we had a highly skilled work force available.

Let me just speak to the prison. The prison project was announced just a matter of months before the announcement was

made that the incinerator project would go ahead.

When the prison project came in and in the city of Umatilla,

you’re talking about a community of 3500 people with a total tax

base of $95 million. Then comes the State prison, which has a

budget of $150 million, way more than the entire value of the town,

bringing with it construction and operating workers in the range

of 600 to 800. And each of them bring families. I shouldn’t say each

of them bring families. But the ones that are settling there bring

families, children who have to go to school, et cetera.

Now, the work force that’s supplying those jobs is going to draw

not just from Umatilla, but it’s going to draw from the other communities, it’s going to draw from the Tri-Cities up in Washington,

possibly Walla Walla, other parts of Umatilla County.

Mr. HORN. Well, to what extent was there an attempt made by

the State? What attempt was made to train and provide apprentice

jobs and so forth to people in the area so that during the construction phase they would have some employment?

Mr. DOHERTY. Congressman Horn, I don’t think there was time,

once this thing was on us, to really do that kind of training, because it was announced in January 1997, it was under construction

just months after it. It’s on a fast track just like the incinerator is.

The State is doing some things. And in fairness to the State of

Oregon on that project, I would like to also emphasize that the

State is contributing in other ways to help mitigate the impacts.

They’re doing some road work. They’re doing some other things in

the community of Umatilla. In our case, with the incinerator, there

isn’t anything being done to my knowledge to mitigate that part of

the total impacts that is attributable to just the incinerator.

Mr. HORN. Yeah. When that panel comes, we certainly want

them to explain. Do they have programs such as that? Because

that’s just common across the country in terms of base closure, to,

one, talk about options of other bases, and, two, to give personnel

development that would enable people to hold jobs. And let me

move from that to the impact aid. I assume we’re talking about the

law, Public Laws 874 and 815 on aid to schools.

Now, has that money come here as a result of the Army’s presence here?

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Mr. DOHERTY. To my knowledge, it has not. Commissioner

Tallman, do you know anything about that?

Mr. TALLMAN. No.

Mr. HORN. No impact aid. OK.

Mr. Tallman. I would just like to say in terms of our unemployment figures, the State average for the State of Oregon I think I

just heard the other day on the radio is about 5.5, 5.6, something

like that. The figure for Morrow County is 9.3.

So, even though we do have some spillover in some jobs from

some of these other sites, our unemployment rates are still very,

very high in Morrow County.

Mr. HORN. I see we don’t have your public health people here.

Are there surveys within the impacted area here which show either

forms of cancer out of proportion to other areas or what do we

know on public health factors and the possible situation when we

don’t know what’s either loose or how well it’s contained.

We’ll ask the second panel that. But what do we know about it

from you as the public officials side?

Mr. TALLMAN. From what I’ve heard, the ongoing search for that

kind of information does impact us because of Hanford. And that

is a question, you know, that has been very contentious, ongoing,

and there have been studies that have been released and there are

famous downwinder studies, and they say there is absolutely no

problem.

I have no documented evidence to indicate one way or the other,

you know, what we really know in our county. It has always been

our contention that we believe that there is more of a problem than

has been stated by these studies that come out of these agencies

like this.

Mr. HORN. Now, has the State Department of Public Health ever

done a study here? That’s their responsibility for the State.

Mr. TALLMAN. Not that I’m aware of are.

Mr. DOHERTY. Congressman, let me expand a little bit on that.

I, like Judge Tallman, don’t think that such a study has been done.

But the concern here is not any impact that we may have had

up to now. I think the chemicals have been pretty well stored. The

Commanders out at the depot, the civilian employees who are

working out there, I think they’ve done a good job.

We’re not so much concerned about the storage issue as we are

about once the incineration gets underway, and this chemical is

being burned, it’s going to be emitted into the air. And from that

point forward, from that point forward there might be some things

that would concern my friend, Mr. Minthorn, for instance. And that

maybe should be monitored very closely.

But at the time being, no, we’re not looking backward and seeing

a problem that I know of.

I would like to also caution the subcommittee in this sense. Let’s

not fall into the trap that I think a lot of people have fallen into.

Boom, the incineration project comes. Boom, jobs come. Boom,

workers come. This is a boom. This produces money that’s in circulation.

These short-term economic benefits people think are just great,

we ought to be satisfied to just have them.

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We’re trying to look beyond that. We’re trying to look at the cost

to government, which is associated with that, the cost to the taxpayers themselves when they go on servicing that long-term debt

that’s incurred. Those factors are very important to us. And I think

they would be to you because of your experience with the closure

of the Naval base. They do impact us. I know that you’re aware of

that.

Mr. TALLMAN. I would just like to add, I do know that our Emergency Management Director, Casey Beard, has asked, I have been

at meetings where he has asked and made a statement that it

would be good if we could do some health studies to establish these

baseline numbers that I think that Armand was talking about. But

of course those studies do take money, and I’m sure that the Oregon Health Division would be very interested in helping us with

that. But I know over the past several years that their budget has

always been one of the first to be cut in the State of Oregon. So

they just do not have the money or the manpower to conduct that

kind of study. But it has been asked, but nothing has ever been

done about it.

Mr. HORN. One of the members of the audience has said, and it’s

a good question, have the communities received any aid from the

so-called BRAC closure, which is the Base Realignment and Closure Act, and any programs. We sort of fished for it in various

points.

Mr. TALLMAN. I would allow my planner to, county planner, to

discuss that with you. This is Tamara Mabbott.

Ms. MABBOTT. Thank you, Senator Horn, for asking that question, and since you are a host to a large community in Lakewood,

I thought this might ring home for you.

Actually the communities have not received impact aid so to

speak from the BRAC, Base Realignment and Closure Program.

For the past 8 years approximately there has been something

called the local reuse authority appointed by Congress made up of

the two counties and two members from the Confederated Tribes.

So we are studying the reuse of the facility. And we’ve spent a very

frustrating 2 years most recently trying to figure out ways to generate revenue from interim leasing.

So the Army has said, we will allow you to generate some revenue off of those properties, very limited number of acreages, that

are outside what they call the 1 percent lethality zone, which

means everything that’s within the 1 percent lethality zone is

doomed if there is any accident out there.

To date we have not generated any revenues. We had submitted

a grant application through the BRAC program to receive funds to

study impact aid. And the BRAC program, as you probably are well

aware, is structured to address job loss, not job and economic

growth. So we are in sort of a catch-22 situation. So with regard

to impact aid, it has not been beneficial.

Mr. HORN. Well, I think you’re absolutely correct. And one of my

problems with the Department of Defense over my 6 years in Congress, especially going through these base closures in our area, is

that they keep the environmental money, and if the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army when he testifies can straighten us out

if we are wrong on this.

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And, frankly, it is the slowest agency in Washington, DC, as far

as I’m concerned, and how you prod them into doing something, I’ll

never know. It’s very bureaucratic and very slow.

We’re still sitting around waiting for the U.S. Navy to convey

surplus property when we gave it to them for $1 during the second

world war. And it’s just unbelievable. I regard them as the most

laggard, even behind the Department of Defense.

But I’d appreciate it very much if the Deputy Assistant Secretary

could educate us on what that situation is. We give them the

money out of the Armed Forces authorization and appropriations.

Talk about trickle down. It has dropped down, you know, a few

here and a few there. But definitely there ought to not only be Defense involvement, there ought to be HUD involvement in terms of

housing and other things.

The administration ought to get a focus on this where they would

have, and HUD has been very supportive with economic development. Department of Justice and the President’s cops program.

That has its ups and downs, but you should apply for it, because

it certainly happened to our agriculturally oriented counties in

California. And I think in a way I feel like this is where I grew

up in California, just looking at the farming and the trees and

small populations.

But they can pull that together at the national level, and they

should, and we’ll try to help them.

Mr. TALLMAN. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. We have another one, Mr. Chairman, I don’t quite understand part of it, so maybe the Colonel can tell us. It’s the recent

radio ads assure residents that the children will be safe in overpressurized schools. What about those communities whose schools

are not over-pressurized? Does that also imply that those of us who

are not in over-pressurized buildings are not safe? Will the Army

fund the cost of over-pressurization in school buildings or safety

shelters? And we probably ought to ask that of the Army when

they come up. But maybe somebody here has a perception on this.

Mr. DOHERTY. We have a couple of resource persons present who

can address that.

Mr. HORN. Why don’t you identify yourself and position.

Mr. BEARD. I am Casey Beard, the emergency management director for Morrow County. And the question is one that raises a

great deal of concern to us in the Emergency Management community here locally.

Recently we believe we’ve had some breakthroughs in dealing

with our State and Federal counterparts to address this very concern. Some years ago we made a decision based on several studies

and application of common sense and local perspective that many

of the schools that were closest to the Depot just did not have time

to allow for a safe evacuation.

So we became the Nation’s leader in a project called over-pressurization, so that all of the schools essentially that are within 5

to 7 miles have been over-pressurized.

Mr. HORN. Could you explain that for me? Pardon my ignorance.

What do you mean by over-pressurization?

Mr. BEARD. Basically, we have a series of filters that are located

outside the school, and the potentially contaminated air is pumped

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through those filters and all of the nerve or mustard agent is removed through the filtering process. The clean air is then pumped

into the enclosed part of the facility at an air pressure that’s higher

than the ambient air pressure outside.

So since some of these are older buildings that they are retrofitting, there are always going to be some leaks and cracks. Because the air pressure with the purified air is higher inside, if

there is leakage, it is from inside out. Also if you have an emergency, a window were broken or a door was accidentally opened,

the pressure is sufficient so that it would accommodate those accidental penetrations of the over-pressurized facility.

The concern is that we made that decision because of time. But

if you were further away, you had the luxury of more time, but if

you don’t have the transportation assets, buses, and more importantly, the people to drive those buses, you would squander that

opportunity that you have because you’re further away.

And some schools, particularly Stanfield and Echo, have recently

received buses so that they have enough on hand and the staff

trained that are immediately at the facility to get the children in,

drive them away.

The most contentious remaining issue is the town of Boardman

which is located west of the area. And we believe we have reached

a resolution through an innovative way, the schools, the local communities, Mid-Columbia Bus, are working together to lease purchase some buses at a reduced cost for the life of the program, and

that’s included in our Federal budget supplies for the year 2000,

and if we are successful in achieving that funding, we believe that

we will have addressed this particular issue.

And it’s one of those things that we’re glad that it’s happening

now but it’s taken us a very long time to get it resolved. And it’s

very important to us because if you can prove to the people in the

community you can keep their children safe, then they will be far

more willing to participate and do the things that we ask them to

protect themselves.

Mr. HORN. Well, that’s an excellent point. I’m glad that question

was asked. Thank you.

Mr. TALLMAN. Mr. Chairman, I think there is some concern,

maybe someone who does want to talk about this, there is some

concern that there might be some places in the town of Umatilla

that haven’t been over-pressurized yet. I know that they are working on that, and all of that, and some of that may have been submitted late. But I think that may have been, if that person is from

Umatilla, I would suspect that’s what that question is asking, questioner is asking about. So there is still some work to be done on

the over-pressurization.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Chairman, this one, I don’t know if it is necessarily directed at the panel, perhaps as much for us to consider,

especially since we also serve on the committee that has oversight

over the sensus. It is from the mayor of Irrigon, which says, Irrigon

is a bedroom community which in the past has relied on grants

heavily with the census in 2000. This growth as a result of the

Umatilla Army chemical disposal will greatly impact us not only

because of the population increase but also the higher income level

caused by the wages paid at the Depot.

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So, in other words, they are going to have this influx of higher

paid people that would not normally be here, they will get counted,

counted as if they are a higher wage, therefore they won’t qualify

for some of the traditional funding they will get for their economic

status, and that will have a tail of 5 to 7 years. And I don’t know

if there is a way to address that or not within the census process.

Mr. HORN. That’s a temporary use of people. But it isn’t a longterm solution to the unemployment.

Mr. WALDEN. And in fact works against them in the long-term,

because it sets the standard for their income level for the community, because they happen to be here right in that turnaround time.

There’s another question from an audience member, perhaps not

to the panel, what economic impact, if any, would changing from

incineration to another disposal technology have on the local economies? Does anyone want to address that on this panel? Dr.

Obermiller.

Mr. OBERMILLER. Well, the issue would be, if you shifted to another technology, what would be the employee work force profile

and associated wages.

Other than that, if there was some sort of buy locally, if at all

possible, directive that was associated with the change in technology, that could make a difference.

Mr. TALLMAN. It has always been our position that we support

getting it burned with this incinerator. That has been our position.

We realize that there is other technology out there and there are

people that have those questions that that’s the best way to do it.

We haven’t been presented with any information yet that we

know of that indicates that that’s really true.

The main thing, just like the mayor of Hermiston has already

said, let’s get them burned. That’s what we’re most concerned

about. And we’d like to get that done. And that’s the way that

we’re pushing. But we don’t want to do it at the cost of safety.

Mr. HORN. Let me ask you a couple of points. Are community

sewer systems used by the Army Depot, and when you think of infrastructure, is there a problem there in terms of waste going

through those sewer systems?

Mr. TALLMAN. No, sir.

Mr. HORN. So it isn’t a problem?

Mr. MCCANN. Mr. Chairman, I think I can address that from the

community level.

What our concerns are, are not so much with any of this material

coming from the Depot into our public utility systems. It’s the increased population into our communities as a result of the procedures at the Depot. Nothing directly from the Depot would come

into our community utility systems.

Mr. HORN. In other words, it’s just the normal infrastructure

needed when a town expands.

Mr. MCCANN. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORN. There’s usually fire agreements between fire departments in cities, counties, State in an area. Now, I noticed coming

in, they obviously correctly have their own fire units there. But I

would think there would be a need to call upon surrounding ones

if you had a major problem.

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And I guess I would ask the question, do the fire people that are

not in the Army Depot area but are in your cities, counties, State,

do they know and have the procedures and the training if something really happened there to be up to speed on it?

Mr. MCCANN. It’s a slow process, and we’re not there yet. Chief

Stearns might have something to say about that.

Mr. WALDEN. Chief, if you could come and take a microphone, so

everyone could hear you. And we will under our rules need to

swear you in, as well.

Mr. STEARNS. I already did that.

Mr. WALDEN. So you are taken care of.

Mr. STEARNS. We do have multiple aid contracts throughout the

Umatilla Morrow County, and that includes Umatilla Chemical

Depot as a player on that.

And, yes, in times of emergency, be it chemical event or the routine fire out there, we are called upon to interact with them. Training and preparation is an ongoing issue with us.

We are all primarily volunteer organizations in this area. I have

the luxury of having the largest fire department in the area and

a few paid staff. We are still a combination of paid and volunteer.

The other departments around are primarily volunteer organizations.

The training has been slow in coming, but I think we’re headed

there, we’re getting it. The equipment to equip our personnel to be

able to deal with an event in the community is coming. We’re not

there yet, but there’s a light at the end of that tunnel as well.

Mr. HORN. Well, have there been exercises of the Army and the

county and the city at the same time?

Mr. STEARNS. There have been exercises. We have been limited

in what we have been able to do in those exercises, because of the

limitations on training and equipment. The volunteer organizations

here have a fairly large turnover in personnel, so training is going

to be an ongoing issue. We have fire departments to run and emergency ambulance services to provide. Trying to squeeze the Depot

training in on top of that is a challenge to us. We have personnel

limitations.

And of course we have an impact as all others do with the increased people in the area, the demand from out there, and no tax

revenue coming to us to support those services. So it is certainly

a challenge.

Mr. HORN. I have a card where someone in the audience has

talked about the status of first response units.

We’ve talked about the fire department. You’ve mentioned the

ambulances. Is there anything else where training is needed, part

of a plan where you have all of those interacting with each other?

Mr. STEARNS. Yes, there is.

Mr. HORN. Including the police, obviously.

Mr. STEARNS. Including the police. There are traffic control

points. And there is also decontamination of the public. We have

decon units that we’re intended to man at central points located,

so in the case of emergency we can provide decon.

All of those things require personnel to staff them. We provide

hazardous materials response services, fire response, ambulance response, and decon. We do all of those with the same core group of

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people. We can do one of those missions pretty well. We don’t have

the personnel to staff all of those in time of emergency.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Chief.

Mr. WALDEN. I will followup on that with Mr. Minthorn as well.

Could you describe what the Tribes have in terms of equipment

and personnel to be able to assist in this effort and what needs you

might have?

Mr. MINTHORN. The Tribes, and I would share the frustration

with the other counties, originally the Tribes were not even included in emergency management. We weren’t even considered.

But that is beginning to change, very slowly, and I would share the

other counties’ concerns with the slowness.

But the Tribes are now beginning to network with local emergency managers. It’s beginning to happen. The equipment, as far

as what the Tribes have in their capabilities are now being

strengthened to network with local responders, but I would again

cite the frustration that is still there because of the progress and

how slow the progress is.

Mr. HORN. On that point, if I might, Mr. Chairman, to just go

down the row, one of our basic questions of this panel was, does

each of you feel that your communities are sufficiently equipped to

handle a chemical emergency.

And, Mr. Minthorn, I think you’d say no to that answer. Would

you?

Mr. MINTHORN. Yes.

Mr. WALDEN. And then Mr. Doherty?

Mr. DOHERTY. Mr. Chairman, I would say no, and I want to add

this observation. I don’t know if it came through in Jim Stearns’

testimony, but in this area, our rural fire protection districts are

our first responders. They’re the pick, axe and shovel people on the

ground. They have HAZ-MAT responsibilities, ambulance responsibilities, a lot more than just fighting fires. And they don’t have

any direct resources that I know of from CSEPP.

I have suggested in my written statement that CSEPP should

fund a position in every one of those six fire departments. That’s

Hermiston, Umatilla, Echo, Irrigon, and Boardman, so that the

limitations that Jim Stearns was talking about will be mitigated to

some extent.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Tallman, Mr. McCann.

Mr. TALLMAN. Yes. Presently I’d have to say no. We know that

improvements are being made, but presently we would not be able

to respond 100 percent as we would really like at that maximum

protection as the mission statement says.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. McCann.

Mr. MCCANN. As far as the communities are involved, I would

have to also say no.

Mr. HORN. Well, I’m going to assume, but I don’t want to put

words in your mouth, have the local emergency response teams

been issued all the necessary equipment, given the training needed

to handle a chemical emergency?

Mr. MCCANN. I would have to defer that question again to Chief

Stearns. Is he still here?

Mr. STEARNS. And the answer is no, simply.

Mr. HORN. OK. Thank you, Chief.

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Any other comments? I think you’re feeling that way certainly.

Mr. MINTHORN. Yes. Just as a final comment, Mr. Chairman, I

know that the Tribes, we do have an agreement with the Department of Defense we entered into in 1996, and it is a first. I understand that there are no other Tribes that have an agreement such

as ours.

We continue, Mr. Chairman, to cite in many forms and in many

manners the Tribes’ sovereignty, but in particular the sovereignty

that we have is because of the resources, our traditional resources.

My lifestyle is dependent on those resources. Right now I consider

my resources at risk. Therefore, my lifestyle is at risk.

I ask you, Mr. Chairman, to fully consider what you have heard

here today. I have a life way that has sustained my ancestors for

over 10,000 years. We are continuing to practice and maintain our

cultural way of life, even though there is a Federal Government,

even though there are Federal laws, there still needs to be an effort

and an acknowledgement of my way of life through the treaty of

1855 and my lifestyle.

I ask you, Mr. Chairman, to fully consider what you’ve heard

today.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Any other questions we have from the floor? If not.

Mr. WALDEN. We will move on to the next panel. I’d like to thank

this panel for your presentations. They have been most insightful

and helpful in our process here. We will call up the next panel of

witnesses, then, if you will take your seats. And if I could ask each

member of the panel and any staff you have to make comments

stand and take the oath, as well. If you will raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you. Please be seated. We will lead off on

panel two with Dr. Theodore Prociv, who is the Deputy Assistant

Secretary of the Army for Chemical Demilitarization, Department

of the Army.

Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for being here.

STATEMENT OF THEODORE M. PROCIV, DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

Mr. PROCIV. Good morning. Thank you. And thank you for the

invitation. We are pleased to be here to discuss this very important

program.

What I’m going to do is read a very short oral statement but submit a longer statement for the record.

Mr. WALDEN. That will be fine.

Mr. PROCIV. Thank you. Thank you again for the opportunity to

speak with you about the U.S. Chemical Demilitarization Program

and its role in the communities of Umatilla and Hermiston.

I am grateful for your interest and continued support of this very

important national program. Our overall mission is to safely destroy the U.S. inventory of chemical agents and munitions and related non-stockpile while providing enhanced emergency preparedness and response capabilities to the communities where the stockpiles are maintained and will be destroyed.

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Mr. Bacon, the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization,

will provide you a detailed overview of the program, and Mr. de

Courcy from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA]

will provide you with an overview of the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program.

I want to use my time here to give you sort of an overview and

a view of the vision where we’re going with this program. The

Chemical Demilitarization Program was really begun to remove a

threat caused by continued storage of these chemical weapons. The

youngest of these weapons is about 40 years old. They were never

meant to be stored that long and it is imperative that we get on

with removing these.

In addition, the program also inspires a worldwide commitment

to the elimination of a complete class of weapons of mass destruction.

So we’re an integral part of a chemical weapons convention and

a much more global program that will help the world rid ourselves

entirely of the chemical weapons. They originally consisted of over

31,000 tons of chemical weapons at military depots in eight states

and Johnston Island in the Pacific. The non-stockpiled part of this,

and we use that term non-stockpiled, is basically the material that

was not declared under the treaty, which consists of remnant munitions that have been dug up from training rounds, old equipment,

training kits, even some of the facilities that we used to manufacture the chemical agents in. So that’s also a sizable part of the program. This material is potentially at 99 suspect sites in 38 States.

So it’s a very large program.

In Umatilla the chemical weapons stockpile consists of 3,717 tons

of chemical agent, which is about 12 percent of the U.S. stockpile.

It’s important to eliminate these weapons because the stockpile

serves no useful defense purpose, but poses real and now unnecessary risk of accidental release of hazardous material. The U.S. military has determined that chemical weapons are no longer a part

of our tactical strategy, have no real effect on giving us an advantage at the battlefield, and therefore it’s time for us to get rid of

these weapons.

The chemical demilitarization program is not a traditional Army

mission. The Army traditionally doesn’t build chemical plants, but

the Army has been given this job to be executive agent which we

will do it to the best of our ability while we take care of the No.

1 issue, which is safety and maximum protection to the public.

The communities, States, the environmental corporations are all

stakeholders and play a very significant part in this program. All

stakeholders share the same mission of safe destruction. They

somehow differ as to the best course of achieving this, and we

heard some of this in prior testimony. However, the goal of the program continues to be integration of every approach that we feel is

safe in destroying the stockpile. Again, striving for maximum protection.

Members of the community surrounding the Umatilla Army

Depot have long supported the chem demil program. Their involvement has been critical, and we thank them for that.

As we said earlier, these weapons were not put here to defend

Oregon nor Umatilla. They were put here to defend the Nation,

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and the Nation owes them a debt of gratitude for taking care of

that. The program’s mission, objectives, and timelines are clearly

established by U.S. law and international treaty, mandating the

destruction of the entire stockpile by 2007. Absent a change in the

law, we believe we can finish this program on time.

In summary, the chem demil program is moving forward with a

renewed focus and momentum. The studies and scrutiny of the

past couple of years have provided a necessary examination of our

focus. Our work toward implementing change in reaching our objectives is fueling that momentum. The momentum is very important to us in light of the treaty, in light of the timing that we have

to achieve at this point.

The issue of impact funding has come up numerous times here.

We’ve been working very hard over the last few years trying to determine what the position on impact funding is. To date we have

been unable to find any legal authority for us to provide impact

funding. We have gone through general counsel, we have gone

through the various legal offices, the Office of Secretary of Defense

and the Secretary of the Army. And at this point there is no legal

basis for the Department to pay under, and the Office of General

Counsel continues to work with any community that wants to work

with them.

I do have one page that I can either read or put into the record

later during Q and A that talks about the position, the general

counsel’s position on impact funding and on the Tooele situation

which was mentioned.

Mr. WALDEN. I think it’s fine if you want to submit them for the

record, and perhaps give us copies, as well.

Mr. PROCIV. All right.

Mr. HORN. Do have copies with you?

Mr. PROCIV. Yes. We can manufacture a few more if you need.

Therefore, the continued commitment, full support of this program will allow us to complete our mission of destroying the U.S.

chemical weapons and munitions and related material while ensuring the safety and protection of the communities surrounding the

stockpile, the demilitarization work force and the environment.

I also want to thank you for your support for restoring our budget and keeping it up to the levels that we can achieve our goals.

Thank you very much.

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Doctor, and without objection, your

comments and your full testimony and the white paper you referenced will be entered into the official record of the subcommittee.

Mr. PROCIV. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Prociv follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Bacon.

STATEMENT OF JAMES L. BACON, PROGRAM MANAGER FOR

CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

Mr. BACON. Chairman Horn, Mr. Walden——

Mr. WALDEN. You may want to get that, if it is possible, a little

closer to your mouth. You have to work these rather closely. When

we are done, you can do radio.

Mr. BACON. Thank you. Chairman Horn, Mr. Walden, chairman

of the committee, good morning. I am pleased to be here this morning in the great State of Oregon to represent the Chemical Demilitarization Program. I want also to thank the citizens of Oregon and

Morrow County and Umatilla County and the surrounding areas

for their longstanding support to the Army and particularly to the

Umatilla Chemical Depot.

In my role as program manager, I am directly responsible for the

execution of the destruction of this Nation’s chemical weapons

stockpile, as well as the non-stockpile material that Mr. Prociv

mentioned.

To accomplish this mission, I oversee three separate programs;

the chemical stockpile disposal program, the 31,000 tons, to include

alternative technology sites in Maryland and Indiana; the nonstockpile project that Dr. Prociv referred to; and also support the

Russian Federation in their destruction of their chemical weapon

stockpile called the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and

there we are in the process of building a pilot facility to assist the

Russians. All of these are under my purview.

As Dr. Prociv noted, this program is not new. We have had these

projects in place for a number of years and they have positioned

the United States as the world leader in chemical warfare material

destruction. In fact, we have surpassed the first destruction milestone established by the chemical weapons convention, and are

working to stay on track to meet or exceed the next two milestones

of 20 percent and 45 percent complete, established for the years

2002 and 2004 respectively.

Dr. Prociv also mentioned that the business of disposing of this

Nation’s chemical weapons stockpile has received significant, and

unfortunately sometimes not always favorable attention, but that

our successes have been also overshadowed at times. But this

morning I’d like to shed some light on some of those successes in

the status of the program.

First, we are getting the job done and doing it safely and doing

it well. By operating the two facilities at Johnston Island in the Pacific and Tooele, UT, over the last 3 years, these two programs

have reduced the weapons by over 4,000 tons. And our rate of disposal is going to increase dramatically within the next 3 to 4 years,

as we bring on the facilities currently under construction here in

Umatilla, in Alabama and in Arkansas; and also bringing on pilot

facilities with the alternative technologies in Indiana and Maryland. That is 90 percent of our stockpile destruction well underway.

And while we’re working on these five additional sites, we’re

working on a plan of action to close the Johnston Atoll facility. And

that is a significant milestone, provides the pioneering efforts for

not only the Johnston Atoll facility but all the followon facilities,

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including here at Umatilla. This facility provides us an excellent

opportunity to create a model for closure—the first time it’s ever

been done. And we will apply that to the followon facilities. In

achieving these disposal results that I mentioned, we have not sacrificed either the health of the environment or the safety of our

workers and the public. The Johnston Atoll chemical agent disposal

facility coexists with the national wildlife refuge on Johnston Atoll,

and we are partnering there with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to assure the protection of the Atoll’s unique wildlife and natural environment.

At the Tooele chemical agent disposal facility, which is our first

facility in the Continental United States, we are celebrating our

third anniversary of safe operations, and a significant milestone of

50 percent of the nerve agent GB, or sarin, that is stored there has

been destroyed. To reach such milestones, we have had to take this

program from an initial research and development phase to actual

operations and maintenance. A process that, I would admit, has

been extremely complex in scope.

To establish the mature program that we have today, we engage

in a constant assessment of our approach, continually seeking out

the best practices necessary to accomplish the mission safely, cost

effectively, and within the timeframes set by the international treaty. We perform this assessment at both technical and programmatic levels.

Through our lessons learned program we have been able to capture and share the technical history and the problems that we’ve

uncovered. This enables the programs that we’re installing today to

build on these past successes. Streamlining the environmental

processes has resulted in successful and timely permit issue resolution in the States where we have chemical weapons stored and will

be building disposal plants.

Through an independent assessment of our program’s cost and

scheduled risk, we were able to identify areas where proactive

changes were needed and in fact which we have now instituted and

are paying significant dividends. We are continuing to review our

ongoing management practices, look at ways to implement best

business practices within our current management and budget

framework.

And through all of these ongoing evaluations, we are developing

approaches that will meet our future challenges and enable us to

overcome the obstacles of the past. One challenge in particular has

been the need to communicate effectively and meaningfully with

our stakeholders, particularly those citizens living in the communities surrounding our stockpile locations. Our efforts to identify

and address community concerns are an integral part of the

PMCD’s missions.

Key actions to date include opening and operating outreach offices in each of the stockpile communities, upgrading our publicly

accessible website, and planning and conducting comprehensive

surveys. This survey will provide us not only with the information

on how we’re doing with public involvement, but also with information on the path we need to take as we move forward. I cannot

stress enough how important it has been to the program to have

the people on the ground in each of the site communities speaking

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with, listening to, and receiving feedback about our mission of safe

and effective destruction of the stockpile that is stored here and

elsewhere.

In the process of communicating with our stakeholders, we have

looked closely at how we are doing, particularly in terms of cost

and schedule, and most importantly, in those nonnegotiable areas

of safety and protection of the environment. It is important,

though, to understand that the life cycle cost figures are not just

for research and development, or acquisition, or operations and

maintenance. Our budget needs to cover everything from community health studies, cost of partnering with organizations such as

FEMA for CSEPP, to cooperative agreements with the States.

And because of these many funding commitments, I’m especially

concerned about the impacts that budget cuts may impose. For example, recent budget analysis by my resource management office

personnel have shown that the proposed budget cuts will adversely

affect all of our demil program sites, including the one here in Oregon.

Our analysis clearly indicates a significant budget reduction in

fiscal year 2000 could create delays in the disposal of our stockpiles

as well as the non-stockpile material; and result in the breach of

the Chemical Weapons Convention date of April 2007; but more importantly it could increase the cumulative risk to the public from

the continued storage of these weapons; and significantly increase

the program life cycle cost estimate by more than $400 million.

For the program manager, the overall driver for establishing our

disposal schedule, is the reduction of the cumulative risk to the

public from an extended storage of the stockpile. A secondary driver is meeting the chemical weapons convention deadline. My goal

is to reduce this risk at all sites; striving to meet the treaty deadline will also allow us to accomplish that goal.

The particular demands of our safety culture dictate we approach

disposal with extreme care. As Dr. Prociv mentioned, this is a 15

year old program and many of those 15 years have been spent testing and evaluating safe disposal technologies and processes. When

we factor in the work of our colleagues that are safely operating

the chemical agent munitions disposal system, at the Deseret

Chemical Depot in Utah for 20 years, it is clear our approach to

chemical weapons elimination has been delivered with safety always the priority.

As a citizen and a resident living near one of the nine stockpile

locations, I would not want our program’s history to look any different. I’m committed to a future that is built on our record of making sure we have it right before we move forward. And this approach has served us well. We’re now positioned to accelerate the

disposal schedule in the coming years, based on this history of

demonstration.

As program manager, I feel confident about our capability to operate multiple facilities simultaneously, built on the solid and safe

foundation that we are standing on here today.

I want to thank you for this opportunity to highlight these successes. I would like to reiterate my personal commitment and that

of our fine work force to continue operating in a fiscally responsible

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manner, to use the best proven technologies, to eliminate the risk

posed to our communities, while being protective of public health

and the environment. My staff and I stand ready to provide you

with any additional information you desire.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bacon follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Bacon.

Let’s hear now from Mr. David de Courcy, Federal Emergency

Management Agency. Good morning and welcome.

STATEMENT OF DAVID de COURCY, REGION 10 DIRECTOR,

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

Mr. DE COURCY. Good morning. Mr. Chairman, members of the

subcommittee, I am the Regional Director for Region 10 of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Region 10 for your information covers Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss some of the key elements of the CSEPP program relating to

the safety of communities around the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

FEMA has provided the committee with a written statement by

Russell Salter, Director of Chemical and Radiological Preparedness

Division discussing the CSEPP program from a national perceptive.

My intent here is to give you a brief overview of where we are

today in Oregon, and to highlight the significant progress that has

recently been made through the combined efforts of all of the governmental entities involved in the program; FEMA, the Army, the

State of Oregon, Umatilla and Morrow Counties, and the local jurisdictions.

One preliminary comment. We are all aware that this has been

and remains a challenging program. It involves all of the different

levels of government that exist in our democratic system; Federal,

State, and local. It involves different organizations within each of

those governmental units. All of these entities have different cultures, different ways of doing business, and in some cases, different

ideas about how best to implement this program. But there is one

constant for all of us: To protect the public.

And so, despite occasional differences of opinion and even some

quite public controversies, the collective commitment to that goal

by everyone involved in the CSEPP program has made the communities around the Umatilla Depot much safer than they were before, not only from a chemical weapons accident, but from a hazardous materials event on the roads or rails or from a natural disaster such as a flood or fire.

We aren’t done with the job yet, but let me in my brief appearance today inventory some of the things that have been accomplished through the CSEPP program.

Emergency operation centers. Both Umatilla and Morrow Counties have, or soon will have, first class emergency operations centers. The Umatilla County CSEPP staff has recently moved into a

new state-of-the-art facility in Pendleton, built in conjunction with

the county’s Justice Center. Morrow County is in the final stages

of a renovation project that will be completed in October. In the

meantime, its EOC remains fully operational.

Sirens. The State has installed and tested 35 outdoor sirens in

the two counties, as well as 7 more on the Depot itself. All are

working and are tested once a month. Because of population

growth, FEMA is funding six additional sirens.

Highway reader boards. These are designed to help direct traffic

if an evacuation is necessary. Nine reader boards have been inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:12 Aug 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64491.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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stalled. One is not working because of vandalism and is being

moved to a safer and better location.

Tone alert radios [TARs]. These special radios are currently

being lab and field tested, and about 17,000 of them will be distributed in every home and business near the Depot. They allow emergency managers to alert people of a problem, and can transmit

voice instructions regarding appropriate protective action. We expect delivery of the radios late this year or early in 2000, with distribution to the public being complete by next May.

I would note that we are aware that some elements of the communications infrastructure that supports the tone alert radios are

not yet working properly. The counties are working with the system contractor to correct those problems.

Alert notification. The Depot is now able to notify all State and

county emergency operations centers of a chemical event via a

dedicated telephone conference bridge. In addition, a computerbased emergency management information system is able to simultaneously notify all emergency operation centers of an incident, reveal the level of alert and graphically show the direction of a chemical plume.

Over-pressurization. This allows people to shelter-in-place. As

was discussed earlier, it provides an airtight enclosure, which

keeps contaminated air outside using weatherization techniques

and air pumps; 11 schools in Umatilla and Morrow Counties have

working systems which presently protect 5,500 children and teachers. An additional system is being built into the new high school

in Umatilla. Food supplies, blankets, sleeping pads, and items for

special needs children have been distributed to Morrow County,

and Umatilla’s will be distributed next month as school begins.

Good Shepherd Hospital over-pressurization. This project is going

to bid this month and should be completed by the fall of 2000. It

had been delayed for some time by some design issues but those

issues have now been resolved.

Good Samaritan Nursing Home over-pressurization. The design

has been approved for this project and a contractor has been selected, construction should begin later this month.

Hermiston Safety Center. It is also in the design phase for overpressurization and should be completed next year.

Transportation. As was discussed previously during an earlier

panel, some schools have chosen to evacuate because of their distance from the Depot rather than to do over-pressurization. A bus

has been provided to the city of Echo to evacuate school children.

And we are working with the superintendent of schools in

Boardman, Bruce Anderson, to provide transportation for the

Boardman children as well. I received a letter from Mr. Anderson

on Friday which I think was a very promising proposal, and I am

confident we will be able to resolve this issue in the near future.

Shelter-in-place kits. Each household in the areas closest to the

Depot will receive a shelter-in-place kit which will allow residents

to prepare an airtight safe room in their homes. Morrow County

has already distributed about half of its needed kits.

Umatilla County is currently assembling the 13,000 kits for its

residents and plans to distribute them by mail in October.

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Responder protection. Several projects designed to protect first

responders in responding to a chemical incident have been a significant part of recent CSEPP efforts in Oregon.

Monitoring equipment. This allows response personnel to detect

the presence of chemical agents. Under a pilot project developed

jointly by FEMA, the Army, the State, the counties, and the local

jurisdictions, 20 improved chemical agent monitors, or ICAMs,

were provided by the Army in March. The Depot is providing training to the first responders on ICAM use.

Personal protective equipment. 300 Level C protective units,

overgarments, boots and masks have been provided to be used by

first responders. Training and fit testing for this equipment is well

underway.

Decontamination trailers, also referenced briefly in earlier testimony. Four trailers are in-place in the counties. These will be deployed to specific sites to decontaminate persons suspected to be

contaminated. Each units have showers, water supplies and other

specialized equipment. Each trailer has its own tow vehicle as well.

Three of these tow vehicles have been delivered. One is being fitted

with special equipment.

Public information and education. Public outreach is a critical aspect of emergency preparedness generally. This is especially so in

the CSEPP program. We are engaged in a very active public education effort involving FEMA, the Army, the State, including Office

of Emergency Management, the State Department of Health and

the State Department of Environmental Quality, and the counties.

These efforts focus on communicating with the public about what

to do in the event of an emergency. A very aggressive plan is now

under consideration that would use commercial advertising to increase public awareness and to approve citizens’ ability to protect

themselves.

In closing, I want to emphasize that we are moving forward with

a collaborative approach to the management of the CSEPP program in Oregon. In March, we implemented what we called our

Unified Management Team, which consists of representatives of

FEMA, the Army, the State and each county. This team meets

weekly to identify issues, resolve problems and monitor progress.

It brings together key players on a regular basis, has clarified responsibilities, and has helped ensure that issues are addressed in

a timely fashion. It also brings closure to nagging issues that in the

past sometimes took on undue significance.

In addition to the weekly team meetings, we also have a thorough briefing every 4 to 6 weeks for a broad array of local officials

where progress is reported and issues are discussed in an open

forum. Local attendees include the county commissioners, mayors,

first responders, and Tribal representation.

This entire unified management team process has greatly improved communication among everyone involved in the program,

has helped avoid misunderstandings and potential controversies,

and ultimately, has greatly enhanced the pace of progress in protecting the public. Clearly, it has been instrumental in bringing to

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closure many of the items that I have discussed today. I am confident that it will continue to provide a strong foundation as we

move forward with the CSEPP program here in Oregon.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. de Courcy follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you very much. Let’s go now to our final

witness in this panel, Myra Lee, who is the director of Oregon

Emergency Management Division.

STATEMENT OF MYRA T. LEE, DIRECTOR, OREGON

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Congressman Walden. Thank you, Congressman Horn.

My name is Myra Thompson Lee. I am the director of the Oregon

Emergency Management. I had submitted information for the

record and will try to summarize briefly without repeating a lot of

everything we have already heard. I keep marking things out here

as we go on.

Oregon has been involved in the CSEPP program from the beginning. In 1989 we received the first amount of funding that was

available. It was $100,000. A full 10 years have passed since that

time, and we have seen great strides in preparedness capability of

both Morrow and Umatilla Counties and the State of Oregon. We

have the most advanced alert notification system in the State in

this region. It includes the system of high power sirens to alert citizens and agricultural workers who are outside, highway reader

boards to help direct traffic in an emergency, and soon under the

counties oversight it will include individual tone alert radios for

every inhabited building in the immediate response zone.

You have already heard about the over-pressurization and the

supplies for the schools, and about the buses. In regard to training,

by October 85 percent of the first responders, medical staff and

other emergency workers will be trained in chemical response. The

training is slow and part of that is simply because of the schedules.

We have to meet the schedules of first responders to be able to get

the training to them in a way and at a time that meets their work

requirements.

Operational needs have been developed through multijurisdictional planning and reflected in the budget requests that are

submitted to FEMA and the Army, and policy issues are addressed

by joint meetings of the group that Director de Courcy described,

which includes the local officials, Tribal, State and Federal executive management representatives. Still we do have a long way to

go. But at this critical time we are seeing reduced funding for some

very important projects. One of our concerns has been and continues to be the funding strategy developed by the Defense Department called life cycle cost estimates [LCCE]. The intent was to

project CSEPP program and equipment cost to the year 2004 and

to hold spending to an agreed upon level. However, the cost figures

were reduced by the Army, the cost figures submitted by the counties and the State, were reduced by the Army to meet the demand

to cut costs by the Defense Acquisition Board of the DOD.

Hence, the LCCE since its inception has not adequately provided

for or been adjusted to account for medical costs, the normal year

to year growth of the program at the State and local levels, nor the

costs of the certification process that must demonstrate we have

met the prescribed level of emergency preparedness outlined in the

final operating permit.

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For instance, we have repeatedly requested to have the medical

preparedness component included in the LCCE. This has not been

done. The result has been that the medical preparedness costs have

supplanted other activities that also needed to be done.

Training is another area. Training needs are especially difficult.

Many people must take work or family time to train. Many of them

are volunteers, and there are no funds to cover the additional costs

of public safety infrastructure in the counties. Issues related to the

LCCE have delayed progress and budget cuts would simply make

this worse. We request that the LCCE be addressed—readdressed,

and that it be allowed to reflect actual needs at every level. The

facility permit issued by the State of Oregon requires that community emergency preparedness be adequate prior to the start of facility operations. The Governor’s signature is required on this document to ensure that an adequate level of emergency preparedness

exists.

The communities must be able to provide warning to citizens and

an adequate response to a chemical emergency. Protective measures for our citizens and emergency workers must be adequate and

medical services and equipment must be available. There are many

other safeguards that must be established before the State will certify community readiness.

That is what the certification process is all about. The importance of this certification process to the counties and the State cannot be overemphasized. It not only assures an adequate level of

emergency preparedness but it is a good faith effort to achieve

what is needed with respect to the safety of our citizens and the

protection of our environment.

In closing, let me say that we do appreciate you being here.

There are many things that you need to consider in this process.

But the bottom line in CSEPP is always and has been the protection of the public, that is my goal. My staff live here. I come from

a rural community. And I understand the issues that this type of

a situation represent, and from that local perspective. Thank you

very much for your time, and I’ll be glad to answer any questions.

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Ms. Lee. We appreciate it.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lee follows:]

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Mr. WALDEN. We will go right into questions now.

Mr. Prociv, I have a question regarding the funding issue. My

understanding is for fiscal year 1999 the appropriation for chemical

weapons was $780 million for the Army. The recommended committee level out of the House was $781, which is $388 million

below what the President’s budget requested, which is designed to

deal with the ramp-up in costs.

But I want to read from the committee report and have you

maybe address the concern that they raised when they made this

reduction.

They say the committee remains concerned over the extremely

slow obligation expenditure rates for the chemical munitions destruction program. Recently the committee has learned that its

concerns are valid through an internal DOD comptroller memorandum. The committee has learned the chemical agents munitions

program uses unique and questionable budget execution actions.

Not only are these large unexpended and unobligated balances of

prior year funds, but the budget request is $388 million higher

than last year’s appropriated amount.

Since not only the committee but also the Office of Secretary of

Defense comptroller staff cannot determine the validity of the program’s prior obligations, the committee recommended that the program be held at last year’s level.

I understand you may have some information to respond to what

the committee was faced with when they made their decision.

Mr. PROCIV. I will be pleased to respond to that. The memo that

they referred to was a preliminary memo that was sent from a

budget analyst to the comptroller. The issue was not slow obligation rates but slow disbursement rates.

And this was a concern, because our program is very much different than most other DOD programs. There were a number of

concerns stressed in that.

Subsequently, the comptroller established another committee to

take a look at the low obligation rates, and there is a report, which

we will be happy to provide you with that report. The report basically takes each of the allegations and finds them to be essentially

not correct. In deeper detail, it exonerated us from those accusations.

Also, as a result, the GAO came and did a short preliminary

study and they also came to the same conclusions that the process

was in fact correct and there was no mismanagement of the budget.

The reason this budget is very different than most defense budgets, the difference between obligation and disbursement rates are

a little bit larger than normal, is that this program is driven by

permits. We, because of the way we budget money and manage it,

have to essentially obligate the dollars and then wait for a permit.

Very often we wait a little longer than we had anticipated. So

most of the concerns on disbursements were based around that

kind of an obligation rate.

The two studies that have been done essentially exonerated us

and point to good management practice.

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Mr. WALDEN. And at this point I would like to have those entered in the record of the committee hearing process, if you have

them.

Mr. PROCIV. I would be pleased to.

Mr. WALDEN. Without objection, Mr. Chairman, we will do that.

Let me go on to ask you another question.

The letter you mentioned, or the white paper you mentioned

about impact aid from your general counsel’s office, which we put

in the record, what’s the date that that report was created?

Mr. PROCIV. The letter that they gave me is dated March 26,

1999.

Mr. WALDEN. So March 1999.

Mr. PROCIV. That’s correct. The information paper on Tooele is

June 1, 1999. These are the two that I will submit.

Mr. WALDEN. Have you shared, obviously you’ve heard how important this impact aid issue is to me and to members of this community. Have you shared those letters with the community leaders

yet?

Mr. PROCIV. No, we did not. We have had the general counsel

come to some of the communities and explain the position, explain

the Tooele settlement. We have been very active in keeping the

communities informed of what our position is. So we have done

that wherever we have been invited to.

Mr. WALDEN. If possible, I would recommend you share that,

those documents, with the community leaders here. I think that

could be very helpful.

Let me ask you this, too. From what I hear you say, you don’t

feel like there’s a statutory authority to provide the impact aid.

Does the administration intend to pursue that authority, or support that authority if somebody else pursues it legislatively? Can

you speak to that issue?

Mr. PROCIV. It’s an issue of both authority and budget. The issue

of the legislative authority basically is that we have a budget that

has been appropriated for certain series of actions we have to

achieve, and the impact aid is not one of those actions, and if so,

we would need some relief in that case.

Of course, these are not insignificant sums of money, when you

start to add up the other communities that have also approached

us. Facing the kind of cuts that we are facing, we don’t even have

the kind of money that we can start to put out, even if we had the

legislative authority.

So at this point it would have to be both the authority and some

form of appropriation.

Mr. WALDEN. I understand that. I guess, you know, limited authority and budget caps, and all of that as well. But I guess the

point is, we’re asking the local taxpayers to absorb the hit, as well,

and they are not getting compensation.

So I guess, I didn’t hear you say, can you speak in terms of

whether you would support that authority? I mean, we have to

have the authorization before we can do it apparently.

Mr. PROCIV. This is a congressional program. We will do what we

need to do to get this program going. If Congress wants us to do

this, we certainly will do this.

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Mr. WALDEN. Let me go—I have a question I guess for Mr. de

Courcy. You mentioned that there are 300 decontamination suits,

I believe? That may not be the right term. Hazardous suits. How

many volunteers and professional personnel? I mean, how many

people are out there that would be involved if there were a leak

today?

Mr. DE COURCY. In terms of first response personnel?

Mr. WALDEN. Right.

Mr. DE COURCY. I am sorry. I don’t have that figure.

Mr. WALDEN. Does somebody have that? Is it Mr. Stearns?

Mr. HORN. We need you to speak louder.

Mr. DE COURCY. Perhaps Mr. Stearns would know.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Stearns, can you tell us how many first responders there are in the area?

Mr. STEARNS. I can’t tell you exactly, but there would be approximately 50.

Mr. WALDEN. About 50 first responders. OK.

Mr. STEARNS. I must qualify that. That’s on the fire and medical

side. Police is another issue. I don’t know how many would be

there.

Mr. WALDEN. How many would need to be in these suits, I guess

is the point I am getting at.

Mr. STEARNS. I can’t speak for police. I don’t know what their

numbers are going to be. That is certainly going to be an impact.

From the fire and ambulance, 50 would be my guess.

Mr. WALDEN. I guess the point I’m trying to get at, is 300 suits

adequate, and over what duration? Are these suits one time use

and then you have to destroy them?

Mr. DE COURCY. I think I would respond by saying, this issue to

my understanding has been worked at the local, State and Federal

level, in a joint effort, and I can’t address the specific operational

details because I typically don’t get involved at that level.

As I said, this was worked in a collaborative fashion, and I guess

I would have to make the assumption it was based on input that

was received from the State and local officials, and if we have it

wrong, we would be glad to revisit it.

Mr. WALDEN. I wasn’t necessarily saying it was wrong. I was just

curious to see, is 300 adequate? I mean, if you have 500 people responding? We are trying to sort those kinds of things out.

Mr. DE COURCY. As I say, there was significant local involvement

in the background to achieving that capability.

Mr. WALDEN. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, do you want

to——

Mr. HORN. Yes. Let me raise a few questions panel one has discussed that I would like your response to.

In Judge Terry Tallman’s testimony, he says the following. ‘‘In

1996 one Army official told us, quote, there is a way for you to get

money, but I can’t tell you how, unquote.’’ Any thoughts on that?

Are we playing jeopardy, or what?

Mr. PROCIV. No. I’m somewhat distressed that an Army official

would make that kind of a statement. We have gone through—I

don’t know who that official was or may have been. We have gone

through great lengths with our Office of General Counsel, and we

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cannot find that means, we do not have the statutory authority.

That has been told to us numerous times.

Mr. HORN. I’m reminded, you’re not the only agency where something like that happens. I’m reminded that about 15, 10 or 15 years

ago one of the most distinguished professors of cancer research in

America at UCLA, University of California Los Angeles, wanted to

do research on breast cancer, and the NIH told him, well, we can’t

give you a grant because you’ve never had a grant from us.

And that reminded me that maybe that Army official was over

at NIH at that time.

But the result of that was my good friend Jack Murtha, the

ranking Democrat on Defense Appropriations, poured a few hundred million dollars into the Pentagon budgets to deal with breast

cancer there and prostate cancer later. So some good came out of

that idiotic statement made by NIH at the time.

Let me note here, it says Judge Tallman, at our request the 1997

Oregon Legislature unanimously approved a law that allows counties to charge a fee for storage and handling of the waste. The

Army refused to comply with the law, citing Federal sovereignty,

which is ironic since a similar law was honored in Tooele County,

UT. In essence, the Army claims to be exempt from all of the traditional tools for taxing growth to underwrite community services

and infrastructure such as roads, sewers, water systems and

schools.

How come Utah gets a good deal and Eastern Oregon doesn’t?

Mr. PROCIV. I am going to have to read some segments from this

white paper because I am not an attorney and they constantly accuse me——

Mr. HORN. The first part of the statement is a great credit to

you.

Mr. PROCIV. Thank you. One of the statements made here is that

State statutes generally do not constitute a statutory basis for the

Army to make payments to the State of Oregon. The Federal system of government is immune from paying State taxes and fees.

The Federal Government has explicitly waived its sovereignty in

only a few limited cases. One of those cases is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and that’s with regards to a narrow

range of hazardous waste fees, and that’s section 42 U.S. Code

6961, if you want it for the record.

The Utah situation, the bottom line in Utah, that in 1996 Tooele

County agreed not to seek taxes nor mitigation fees against the

Army and its contractor operating the local Tooele chemical agent

disposal facility in return for a lump sum payment. There was a

$400,000 lump sum payment, and some later payments of $970.37

per ton. I don’t——

Mr. HORN. Were they preparing to sue the Army?

Mr. PROCIV. Yes. The Army originally, when the Tooele County

proposed the fee and the tax, the Army originally opposed the payment of any fee and tax. The Army was ready to litigate on the

grounds that the taxes are illegally levied against the U.S. Government rather than the contractor, and the fee was not clearly tied

to Utah’s hazardous waste program nor did the facility fall within

the physical zone where the payment was required.

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The Army relented because the fee was already being paid by

three hazardous waste facilities in the adjacent counties. The tax

subsequently was assessed against the contractor and there was

substantial risk that a court would have ruled the tax legal.

So in turn the financial terms reached were more favorable to

the Army than the burden that would have been imposed by taxes

and fees proposed by the county.

The county sought to recover $3.3 million per year in taxes beginning in 1994 and had assessed a $6.6 million annual fee in

1993. By settling in this manner the Army was convinced that because there were existing ordinances in three adjacent counties

that were for incinerators and they were paying fees, if the Army

went into litigation, they would lose.

So this kind of a settlement was based on the intent to litigate.

Mr. HORN. Well, I know you can’t do it, but would you advise

those in Eastern Oregon to file a suit against the Army so they can

get $400,000?

Mr. PROCIV. I don’t think advisory is in my job description. I

apologize, sir.

Mr. HORN. As I said, I don’t think you can answer that.

Mr. PROCIV. The only thing I might add to that is that under

RCRA, it does require that there are preexisting statutes already

in existence, and it does not allow you to set them up just to go

after government——

Mr. HORN. Why don’t you explain what RCRA is.

Mr. PROCIV. Resource Conservation Recovery Act.

Mr. HORN. And you did cite that earlier.

Mr. PROCIV. That’s right.

Mr. HORN. And is that how Utah was able to get it?

Mr. PROCIV. That is the only place where the government has

waived sovereign immunity, is under the Resource Conservation

Recovery Conservation Act, where they will actually pay applicable

fees, as long as they are not discriminatory, and they are applied

equally to all industries.

Mr. HORN. It seems they have been very discriminatory, since

Utah has the money and Oregon doesn’t.

Mr. PROCIV. The way the lawyers have described it to me is that

the Utah situation was very much different because of the existing

rules, local county ordinances, because they were companies that

were being already taxed that way. And so because of that presence, they were willing then to go into negotiations with the Tooele

County community. That’s the limit of my knowledge as to why

this was done.

Mr. HORN. So you’re saying that Utah had already taxed the various contractors?

Mr. PROCIV. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. HORN. And you’re saying Oregon did not tax those?

Mr. PROCIV. We know of no other community that has these kind

of ordinances, where we have chemical plants.

Mr. HORN. Maybe some of the Oregon officials can educate me.

Do we have that on the books in Oregon? If not, they can at the

next meeting put it on the books. But who’s the knowledgeable one

here? Why don’t you introduce yourself for the record again and position so our faithful reporter will have it.

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Mr. WALDEN. And use a microphone, too.

Mr. MYERS. Do you want to swear me in?

Mr. HORN. You stood up, didn’t you?

Mr. MYERS. No.

Mr. HORN. We will give you a fast swear in.

Mr. MYERS. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Mr. WALDEN. You’re in. He’s a lawyer, too.

Mr. MYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am Bill Myers, I am an attorney

with Holland & Hart, and I am providing some counsel to Morrow

County.

The county itself has an ordinance in place that’s been in place

for some time regarding hazardous waste management.

The State of Oregon has passed a statute which is currently on

the books allowing for the assessment of fees for the storage and

handling and impact created by the situation we have here. So the

statutes and the county ordinances are on the books.

Mr. HORN. So you see no difference between the evidence at the

time of the filing of Utah versus Oregon that could do that, then,

just as well?

Mr. MYERS. No principled difference.

Mr. HORN. Is that the Holland that was Spencer Holland of Florida?

Mr. MYERS. No. That’s the Holland of Denver.

Mr. HORN. OK. Because he was a wonderful old gentleman. I

won’t tell my jokes on Holland, then. Let me move, if I might, then,

to the general environmental programs of the Department of Defense. Because there’s no question when you close this facility here,

and it’s already been decided that it’s going to be closed, that they

are going to have tremendous environmental things, if they want

to bring industry in, if they ever want to clean it up so they can

put a school on that side of town.

Defense has that money. And they’re supposed to give it to the

sort of aggrieved city in which that property exists. Which is either

city and county or both, and it certainly is in the State of Oregon.

So, what can you tell us on what the Department of Defense to

whom we give bills, and they’ve got hundreds of millions in their

environmental accounts, has the Army ever gone to them and said,

hey, folks, we do this in other places, and said, where’s the money?

Mr. PROCIV. Congressman, I would hope you would let me take

this for the record. This is a little bit outside my authority area.

I am responsible for the chemical demil program. And the environmental issues and the BRAC issues and such are handled by people that I don’t deal with very often.

Mr. HORN. Well, do the BRAC people in the Department of Defense ever speak to the Army? Do they ever say, hey, you know,

what can we do to help? We’re from the government, et cetera?

Mr. PROCIV. I think I had better take that for the record, too.

Mr. HORN. No. It just seems to me that——

Mr. PROCIV. We have had discussions with our BRAC people on

all of these sites. And basically BRAC, when a site is declared a

BRAC site, their activities get engaged.

At this point we’re not engaged with them for these sites.

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Mr. HORN. Well, I was pleased to note there’s a task force here

that involves State, county, city, Federal officials. Is that correct?

I thought your testimony was very good and precise on those

points, of what FEMA has done.

Mr. DE COURCY. Yes.

Mr. HORN. That doesn’t mean they can’t do more, but it was a

good list, an excellent list of what’s been done. We need on the

Washington side and in the military in particular, to get the defense and environmental both in relation to what Army, Navy, Air

Force, Marines, they all have base closures they’re doing, and see

if the Washington end, if we can get the Federal agencies together.

Mr. PROCIV. Yes, sir. I’ll get that for you.

Mr. HORN. I think my colleague, the acting chairman, will have

a few words on that subject.

Mr. WALDEN. I appreciate your comments, Mr. Chairman, and I

think you’re right on target. And I found it interesting that the

BRAC applies for job loss but not the sort of boom and bust problem by a job creation. Perhaps we need to change the BRAC.

Doctor, the administration often takes positions on proposed legislation called ZAP. Specifically, do you know if the Department of

Army would support impact aid in the development of a ZAP?

Mr. PROCIV. We have had some discussions about this. And of

course it comes down to what the conditions would be under that

kind of a ZAP.

As I mentioned earlier, we get our authority from Congress, and

if Congress wants to do something, we can do that.

One of the biggest concerns in the Army, this being an Army

budget, any growth, overruns, any additions, could affect the modernization budget. It could affect the readiness budget.

So there is a lot of concern about how we would respond to a

question like that. If in fact this came to us with a directive, fully

funded, with legal authority, we would follow the directive.

Mr. WALDEN. I guess my point is—Well, let me make two comments on your comment. One, we passed emergency supplemental

to deal with some of the pay and benefit issues during the Kosava

crisis that far exceeded the cost of Kosava to help with readiness.

Two, the overall budget is a $17 billion increase this year.

And so, I mean, I think we’re stepping up to the plate on readiness. And I share your commitment toward that.

But there does seem to be this added responsibility we need to

address.

I’m trying to figure out if the Army, if we move forward with legislation, the easiest way to kill it is a statement of position that

says, no, we don’t want to go there because we are afraid of this

or that.

I’m trying to find out if you can speak to that, I don’t know.

Mr. PROCIV. I know it sounds like I’m waffling, but from the discussions I have had with my superiors it really depends on the conditions. If in fact we had the authority and the dollars and there

was no risk to the Army’s readiness or modernization budget, I

think we would follow those directives very gladly.

Mr. WALDEN. I would like to work with you in that area, or your

superiors, whoever it needs to be.

Mr. PROCIV. I would be happy to.

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Mr. WALDEN. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Do we have, does the Army have a list of the number

of accidents that have occurred within the Depot in terms of its

own employees? Have we had situations where they have accidentally had to have medical——

Mr. PROCIV. Let me pass that to Mr. Bacon who is involved on

the day-to-day operations.

Mr. BACON. Sir, yes, the Depot has a very active and in-depth

safety program providing assistance to the employees in a number

of ways, and I would best believe that Colonel Woloszyn, the Depot

Commander, in fact I should say new Depot Commander, is here

and should address this. Tom, are you here?

Mr. WOLOSZYN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WALDEN. Come on up.

Mr. BACON. I would like to have him speak to that.

Mr. WALDEN. I will swear you in as well, how is that?

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. And could you give us your last name and rank and

position for the record.

Mr. WOLOSZYN. Yes. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas F. Woloszyn. I

am Depot Commander currently, after 1 month. And we do have

records of some of the problems we have had, nothing major. No

major hospitalization in the past. Nothing certainly during my

watch.

Mr. HORN. Has there ever been a situation where something has

escaped out of the facility itself into the community?

Mr. WOLOSZYN. No, not in the past history. When I was talking

about accidents, maybe a handling accident in the past. I’ve heard

those, only from an anecdotal perspective.

Mr. HORN. Well, what was the anecdote?

Mr. WOLOSZYN. I mean, not the anecdote, but from a historical,

stories you hear.

Mr. HORN. The question is, is it apocryphal or isn’t it? Did it ever

leak out?

Mr. WOLOSZYN. Oh. No. It has never leaked out of the Depot

boundaries, that is certain. What I was speaking to is possibly a

worker receiving a low or a small dose.

Mr. WALDEN. Could you just, in a short form, tell us the status

of these 105,000 rockets? Are the leaks predominantly over some

fuel issues?

Mr. WOLOSZYN. The issue of stability is a fuel issue, because they

are a packaged round. You have the explosive, the ignitor and the

propellant together with the weapon itself.

Now, as far as the rounds themselves, we monitor them regularly. Certain lots we monitor on a daily continuous basis. Others

weekly, and some rounds, being like the containerized rounds,

quarterly.

Mr. HORN. That’s all I have on that. Go ahead. These are some

from the audience.

Mr. PROCIV. May I just add one thing, Mr. Walden. One of my

staff just handed me an article from the Congressional Record.

Some people may be aware of this but I thought I would enter this

into the record.

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Senator Smith from Oregon has in fact tried to get some legislation to help us out. We worked very closely with him.

In the Congressional Record he’s asking to engage in colloquy

with the Honorable chairman, ranking member of the Senate

Armed Services on this very subject. In the text it says, ‘‘Finally,

I mentioned my concerns to the Secretary of Defense. He expressed

his willingness to work with us.’’

But I think there is action going on, you see that the Department

is willing to engage in discussions on this, that we’re not just a

blank wall at this point. And I think this will result in some kind

of resolution.

Mr. HORN. So you’re saying the Army will be supportive.

Mr. PROCIV. If the Secretary supported it, absolutely, and that’s

what this states.

Mr. WALDEN. OK. We have some questions from the audience.

Has the CSEPP program considered and factored in the actual

operational problems experienced at the Army’s Utah facility in its

assessment of the emergency preparedness needs for Oregon?

Mr. PROCIV. Would you like to, Mr. de Courcy?

Mr. DE COURCY. Would you read the question again?

Mr. WALDEN. Has the CSEPP program considered and factored

in the actual operational problems being experienced at the Army’s

Utah facility in its assessment of Emergency Preparedness needs

for Oregon?

Mr. DE COURCY. I would prefer to respond to that on the record,

because I am not familiar with the answer to that question.

Mr. PROCIV. Let me add to that. I know your committee is often

concerned about this. We have an exceptionally good working relationship with FEMA. That’s not always the case when Federal

agencies get together. But in this case it works very, very well. We

attend meetings that are at a minimum quarterly, sometimes more

often, where all of the regional people, the State representatives

get together, and they discuss these problems, discuss lessons

learned from one site to another, they trade information, and they

try to integrate their programs as best as possible.

So FEMA has taken the initiative. We have attended those meetings and I believe it’s working very well.

Mr. DE COURCY. Congressman, I am not clear what the record

was in terms of those issues, but I can tell you that there is a very

elaborate certification process that will be undertaken with respect

to the preparedness component of this.

I am not sure. But to the extent that Utah has experienced in

its preparedness issues the certification process could take that

into consideration as we move forward.

Mr. WALDEN. I think there must be some operational problems

that have occurred in Utah. The question is, have those been

factored in, if they were to occur here, in your planning process.

Mr. DE COURCY. And I don’t know the answer to that.

Mr. WALDEN. A followup, has the CSEPP program considered recent efforts—excuse me, recent reports that the chemical agents

are more toxic than originally thought in its assessment of emergency preparedness needs for Oregon and they are referencing a

NRC report on toxicity in 1997–1998.

104

Mr. PROCIV. Just a short answer. That report had addressed battlefield conditions. The report specifically argued for duration of

soldiers in battlefield condition. We have taken a look at that data

and we don’t believe it will affect our operations at all.

Mr. DE COURCY. Also, Congressman, Tom Johnson from the Oregon Health Department might be able to respond to that from the

State of Oregon.

Mr. WALDEN. Would you please be sworn.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. WALDEN. And your name and title for the record.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am Tom Johnson, assistant administrator for the

Oregon Health Division, and this is an interesting question, the

toxicity.

There is a recent study out that draws into question the prevailing data that we have been working on with regard to the toxicity

of the agent. We have at present our toxicologist working on that.

We have a study group coming together to bring together the best

information available within the country.

FEMA is participating in that, as well as information that really

the Army is providing. They are very cooperative in that. We appreciate that.

The answer at this point is we do not know. However, if we get

the information that the best information—minds available in the

country, that indicates that there does need to be a reassessment

of the impact, the area, the population that would be then affected

by a greater toxicity, we will take that into account.

Here in this area, if the local community is aware of that, and

particularly the emergency managers, because what needs to be

factored into is the risks associated with the evacuation of people

within the impact of the greater toxicity. And there needs to be a

balance between the risks associated with evacuation, with the

risks associated with staying there.

We’re aware of this issue. We’re working on it with the Army.

And if the numbers indicate that we do need to re-evaluate our

numbers for our response capability, we will do that.

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you. We’re quickly approaching the

timeline, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know if you had—this is a question

from the audience.

In the October 10, 1998 East Oregonian they stated in an article,

‘‘Deadly gases have come close to escaping smoke stacks during the

incineration process.’’ The document showed that Tooele was shut

down 72 times in a 19 month period between August 1996 to

March 1998. Mostly due to stack alarms in which the Army admits

or won’t tell if they have no idea of chemical agent was released

in the atmosphere or not. Tim Thomas reported that on March 30,

1998 stack monitors recorded levels more than 500 times the allowable concentration.

How can you continue to maintain the incineration is safe?

Mr. PROCIV. I will have to ask Mr. Bacon to address that, too.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Bacon.

Mr. BACON. Thank you, sir. We are confident that we haven’t

had any agent released to the environment. We do check every

alarm that does occur within the plant. We trace those very seriVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:12 Aug 18, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00108 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64491.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
105

ously because we are concerned of protecting public health and the

environment.

We always err on the side of safety and there are times that we

do cease operations until we determine the validity of the various

alarms that cover both the work areas for worker health as well

as the various stack alarms, and there are many layers of safety

in that process where we are sure that we do not release agent to

the environment.

Mr. WALDEN. So you’re saying no agent has been released

through these stacks?

Mr. BACON. I am saying that, sir.

Mr. HORN. Let me ask the gentleman from the Department of

Health, if I might, does Oregon’s Department of Health maintain

statistics on the degree of cancer in various counties and when you

do a survey such as this one on the impact, have they ever looked

at the impact of those that might be working at the facility over

a 10, 20 year period, and that they have certain diseases, I’ll say,

for want of a better word, cancer in particular, out of proportion

to the surrounding people, and have they ever done that type of

statistical analysis?

Mr. JOHNSON. Again, Tom Johnson, Oregon Health Division. We

do maintain records and data on the occurrence of cancers. At this

point there is nothing that stands out for either Umatilla or Morrow County. We have not done a detailed study with regard to the

workers on the facility. Those many times are transient and military people which we don’t keep track of.

Our concern is not so much, again, with the past history, but it’s

what might happen in the future. Generally, our attitude about

that is that while those studies may be very useful in terms of providing baseline, our much larger concern is the risk that the population may be exposed to from the result of an incident, an accident. Our overall priorities are that we would much rather see the

resources put into preparing the community to respond in the

event of an incident, an accident, than looking at perhaps some

studies that may track the human health burden of

organophosphates.

We think that the probability of a problem from release during

the incineration process is much less than the probability of a risk

that would be associated with an incident.

Mr. HORN. Yeah. I often have felt that Departments of Health

ought to take advantage of, say, the Master of Public Health degree

holders or M.S. In health education and just put them to work on

some of these analyses that often departments don’t have either

the resources or whatever to go into depth. But it just seems to me

this would be a very interesting study.

Mr. JOHNSON. That certainly would be the case, and we would

love to do that. Many of our epidemiologists would think that this

would be a Jim Dandy study. Simply as was indicated earlier, we

do not have the funds to do that, and our larger concern is preparedness in the event of an incident.

Mr. HORN. That’s all I have.

Mr. Chairman, if I might, I want to read into the record the staff

that were involved in this hearing, which is our usual tradition.

106

J. Russell George, the staff director and chief counsel, sitting

over there, second from the end. Randy Kaplan on my left, your

right, is the counsel for this particular hearing. Bonnie Heald, director of communications, was with us for a number of these hearings, but is not at this one. Grant Newman, our faithful clerk, is

here. Jeff Eager, the legislative assistant to Representative Walden, is here, and this is him at the table. Martha Cagle, legislative

assistant to Senator Gordon Smith, who is with us. Don’t be shy.

Stand up. Politicians always stand up. And we’re glad to have your

help and the Senator does a fine job. Trey Henderson, professional

staff for the minority. Is Trey here? Well, welcome to Oregon. Oregon National Guard, we appreciate for helping set up for the hearing, the use of the facility. It’s just been excellent support. And

Rick Tunstead, the Army operations technician. And we vote to

raise your pay I think almost every year, so we just wanted him

to know, Rick, let us out of here when we’re done. We’re for you.

And Lieutenant Colonel Sonny Newson. And then our faithful court

reporter, William Bridges, is with us. And the Armory personnel,

of course, has been immensely helpful, Colonel Caldwell, Lieutenant Colonel Lyman, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart, and then I mentioned Sonny Newson and Rick Tumstead, if you would stand up,

we would like to thank you for your hospitality. And with that, I

thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for conducting this hearing here in Hermiston. I would also recognize I know we had a representative of the Governor’s staff here, right here, and then as you

already know, Senator Smith’s staff, and Senator Wyden’s staff I

believe is represented as well. Pete, are you here? There is Pete

right there.

And so we appreciate all of your involvement as we work together to try to resolve some of these local issues, Mr. Chairman,

which we have highlighted now for this committee and for the Congress, and hopefully have got some answers.

Mr. HORN. We are going to recess this to the Seattle hearing.

Mr. WALDEN. We are going to recess this to the Seattle hearing,

I am being told. But the record would remain open for additional

comments if members of the public want to submit for the record.

Mr. HORN. Two weeks at least, if you could get it to us.

Mr. WALDEN. For 2 weeks. So if you have information that you

want the committee to consider, the record will remain open for the

next 2 weeks. And meanwhile the subcommittee will be recessed,

under the call of the Chair in Seattle, I understand.

Mr. HORN. Right.

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you everyone for coming out.

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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