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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.