5/13/2009

Ex-Depot guard calls security flimsy

By DEAN BRICKEY
The Hermiston Herald

Ken Brutscher of Boardman confirms Jeff Pardue's story about the leaking mustard containers at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

He also worked as a Depot security guard until retiring "as soon as I could" in 2006 as a lieutenant. Both started in the 1970s. Pardue still works there.

"At the time, the chemical situation at the Depot was pretty flimsy," Brutscher said.

He described the mustard ton containers as resting on pallets out in the weather. It was the security guards' responsibility to patrol the area twice every shift, he said.

Although Brutscher doesn't claim exposure to the mustard blister agent, he confirmed the U.S. Army placed coffee cans under each container to catch leaks.

"You could see the liquid draining," he said, adding that it vaporized in the summer heat but gelled under 57 degrees Fahrenheit. "It was the rubber grommet, or the rubber seal, that was leaking. The mustard ate that rubber."

Bruce Henrickson, spokesman for the Umatilla Chemical Depot, said the safety of Depot workers, the community and the environment is the Army's highest priority.

"If workers are safe, then the community and environment are safe," he said.

Newcomers to the security staff didn't understand, Brutscher said.

"All we knew is, we're driving around these ton containers that were leaking," he said.

The matter concerned the security guards more than Depot officers, he indicated. Higher-ups directed the day shift to empty the cans full of mustard agent and dispose of it in another container.

"... Chemical munitions can and do leak from time to time," Henrickson acknowledged. "The Army currently monitors mustard agent storage for leaking munitions on a weekly basis using sensitive monitoring equipment capable of detecting trace amounts of agent vapor.

"If and when a 'leaker' is detected," he added, "we respond quickly to identify and then repair the leaking container while maintaining worker safety with protective equipment and procedures."

Eventually, the Army moved the mustard containers inside a metal building in "K Block," Brutscher said.

"They just stacked them and left the 3-pound coffee cans underneath them," he said.

"If you continue to inhale it," Brutscher said, "it builds in the body - at least that's what they told us in training. We tried to get hazard pay for a number of years, but the Army would never buy off on that."

Even later, he added, the Army moved the mustard containers to igloos and installed filtration systems.

Brutscher, too, developed cancer in the early 1990s. Part of his tongue was removed as a result.

"The doctors said smoking caused it," he said. "The insurance pretty well paid it."

Brutscher said he and Pardue aren't the only Depot worker who've suffered medical problems.

"When I retired from the guard force, 18 of us had cancer," he said. We made a request that the government check into that, but that didn't go very far."

The U.S. Army has changed procedures and equipment at the Umatilla Chemical Depot since Pardue allegedly breathed mustard agent there 32 years ago.

Pardue said he and other security guards wore protective gear, including an M-17 mask when they inspected weapons containers.

"That mask, or the filters, are ineffective against mustard," he said.

Brutscher echoed that.

"They didn't do any good," he said. "When I went through training, the trainers said 'no way,' it just doesn't work for mustard."

Henrickson said the Army has provided the latest available gas masks to Depot workers for decades.

"We expect employees to use that equipment and training and to report any indications of agent so that appropriate responses are initiated and safety is maintained," he said. "It's part of their job, and in their best interest."

Henrickson specifically disagrees with Pardue and Brutscher's characterization of the M-17 mask as ineffective against mustard agent.

"The M-17 mask is, or was, effective against mustard as well as GB and VX nerve agent," he said. "It was the standard mask issued, carried and sometimes used by hundreds of thousands of troops around the world during the Cold War, Vietnam conflict and other military operations. The Depot has provided training on proper use of the M-17 mask and newer masks. It's up to employees to apply that training."

Pardue doesn't blame the Army for the exposure he says he and others received.

"They didn't know," he said. "This was not deliberate, but we've got some injured people out there."

Things have changed at the Depot since the late 1970s.

"The way they do things now is totally different," he said, regarding safety equipment and container storage.

Today the Army stores the mustard containers in igloos equipped with odor detectors.

"There was no cover-up," Pardue said. "We just didn't talk about it. No one knew about the later harmful effects, and now it's come to the surface."