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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 2015)
Page 8A OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian GAS: Explosion forced residents within a mile to evacuate homes DEPOT: Locals want the property on the tax rolls Continued from 1A or something in that line,” he said to emphatic nods from several board members. Chance said Umatilla County, Morrow County, the Port of Morrow, the Port of Umatilla and the Confederat- ed Tribes of the Umatilla In- dian Reservation had pulled together the authority be- cause they thought they stood “the best chance to move this property.” But if the Army wanted to take on that role in- stead, he said, the important thing to the local entities was to get the property on the tax rolls and generate jobs. The Plymouth facility — located across the Columbia River from Umatilla — is used for storing of natural gas off the main Northwest pipe- line. Gas is cooled into a liq- uid state at minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit, and held in the identical tanks until needed elsewhere throughout the re- gion. Both tanks are capable of holding up to 14 million gallons of material. With approximately 3,900 miles of transmission pipe, the Williams Northwest Pipe- line is the main artery for carrying natural gas through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Colora- do. Last year’s explosion forced residents living within a mile of the facility to evacu- ate their homes for more than a day while emergency re- sponders dealt with the threat of leaking natural gas. Five employees were treated for injuries, including one who was sent to a Portland hospi- tal with burns. An investigation into the incident is now being led by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety - ings will be made public once all the information is gath- ered, Swaner said. It is not yet known wheth- er the incident was accidental or caused by employee er- Swaner said the company will take a closer look at pro- cedures to see how they can avoid a similar event in the future. “Until we really under- stand what happened at the facility, we don’t want to talk about procedures,” she said. public meeting in Plymouth a week after the explosion, and Swaner said they hope to return by spring or sum- mer with more information to share with the community. Prior to the blast, the Wash- ington Utilities and Trans- portation Commission last inspected the Plymouth fa- cility in November 2013 and reported no violations. Swaner said the company takes safety very seriously, al- though they dealt with a num- ber of dangerous mishaps in 2014. Those included Plym- outh, a pipeline explosion in West Virginia and gas plant explosion in Opal, Wyoming. “These are things we don’t want to happen,” Swaner said. “We do look at our safe- ty record, but we have to un- derstand why we’re having these incidents.” Energy Regulatory Commis- sion on July 2, 2014, of its plans to repair the Plymouth facility in three phases. Most structures have already been repaired, and Swaner said employees are back to work. ——— Contact George Plaven at gplaven@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4547. FIRE: Kids are unharmed physically Continued from 1A get the smell out with repeat- ed washings. “We’re slowly going through things,” she said. “We’re kind of taking it one day at a time.” She said the kids are un- harmed physically but “broke down” yesterday and have been drawing lots of pictures Bursell said she has been touched by the kindness of people in both Hermiston and Umatilla, where her parents live. The manager of Mc- Nary Market gave her $20 for gauze and put out a can to collect donations for the fam- ily, and another community member has already offered up a bed to replace the one that burned. She said if anyone wants to drop off clothes or bed- ding for Izabel, 7, or Row- min, 5, or herself they can do so at her parents’ house, 218 Wenatchee St. in McNary. ——— Contact Jade McDowell at jmcdowell@eastoregonian. com or 541-564-4536. Continued from 1A play games here or hardball, but I don’t think we’ve got the votes on this board of “We don’t care who does that,” he said. The news of the Army’s reversal came as a bump in the road right as the authority discussed a contract awarded to Ferguson Engineering and Surveying out of John Day to survey the property. It also approved opening a bank ac- count to handle money from subleases such as the $8,000 - tural user for 40 acres of land and a $20,000 sublease with Walla Walla Foundry for storage space in 20 concrete igloos. The authority had to put on hold a discussion on hir- ing an executive director as the next step from Chance’s position as project manager. If the deal with the Army falls apart, Chance said, then the authority doesn’t need to hire an executive director to han- dle land transactions after all. Chance said he was still hopeful the authority and the Army could come to an agreement. The Port of Mor- row had expressed interest in buying about 600 acres out- side the fence, he said, which could be enough to mollify the higher-ups at the Depart- ment of Defense. Ultimate- ly the Army could decide it wasn’t worth the hassle to sell the property. “We’re in the negotiation process. We’ll just have to see where this comes down,” he said. “They would like to get rid of the acreage and they would like to do it clean- ly and just be done with it.” Tuesday, January 6, 2015 CHIEF: City pays the position Continued from 1A Pilot Rock budget re- cords show the city pays the chief position $64,550 a year $40,000 less than what the cities of Milton-Freewater, Pendleton and Hermiston each pay their police chiefs. And police in small commu- nities can feel like they are on call 24-7, Carnes said, and have zero private time. The Pilot Rock City Council also will consider a proposal from the tele- communication company Unison, which wants to purchase a cell towner fran- chise in Pilot Rock for the next 50 years for a total of $750,000. Steve Draper, the city’s public works director, in a memo to the council has recommended turning down the offer. The city makes about $1,100 a month from U.S. Cellular for one tower and almost $3,400 a month from American Tower in a second deal, Draper report- ed, and those agreements in- He argued the city makes “substantial revenue” from those towers, and the city would stand to lose more than $380,000 on the Uni- son deal. ——— Contact Phil Wright at pwright@eastoregonian. com or 541-966-0833.
