OREGON Wednesday, July 3, 2019 East Oregonian B3 The headlines that cried ‘Agent Orange’ Although not the feared Agent Orange, those her- bicides can be harmful in large quantities, especially to fragile ecosystems. Lisa Anderson of Blue Mountain Divers was one of the people who found the barrels. She’s a military vet- eran whose training famil- iarized her with the mili- tary herbicide. So when she saw the label, she knew she had to report it to the EPA, and sent in a preliminary report. But for health-re- lated reasons, it took 10 months for the EPA and the divers to meet and to con- firm the report. In the mean- time, Blue Mountain Divers posted another video saying they’d found barrels labeled with Agent Orange ingredi- ents. And those words were the ones that appeared in headlines when the story got picked up locally and nationally. William Lambert, who was also on the dive when they found the barrels, was surprised that the story took off. “I knew that either the barrels were intact, or that whatever was in them was long gone,” he said, and even if something was leak- ing, he thinks it would have been diluted pretty quickly. “Wallowa Lake is a big lake.” But the damage was done. When hotel owners got calls from concerned tourists, they weren’t asking about “2,4-D.” They were By ERIN ROSS Oregon Public Broadcasting JOSEPH — It’s been a tense month in Joseph. The town of just over 1,000 res- idents usually bustles with tourists in the summer. Nes- tled at the edge of a prairie in the Wallowa Mountains, it’s known for bronzework- ing, rodeo, hunting and out- door recreation. But for the better part of a month, the town in Ore- gon’s northeastern corner has been associated with something else: the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, which the military used liberally during the Viet- nam War. National head- lines suggested barrels of Agent Orange were found in nearby Wallowa Lake. Joseph went viral. Hotel owners started receiving calls asking if the lake was safe. Staff worked to reas- sure visitors, and while many tourists still made res- ervations, others canceled theirs. “Agent Orange” and “Wallowa Lake” were even trending on Twitter in Port- land, 300 miles away. But there was never any evidence of Agent Orange in the lake — even any bar- rels labeled “Agent Orange.” And then last week, gov- ernment tests showed that the lake’s water was free of any chemicals and was safe to drink, a relief to residents of Joseph, who draw their drinking water there. Residents of Joseph just EOMG Photo/Ellen Morris Bishop, File Two EPA workers retrieve the “OverPack” containment barrel that contains the first barrel brought to the surface — the 2,4-D or 2,4,5-T barrel noted by Blue Mountain divers in fall 2018. Upon close inspection this herbicide barrel had been open to lake water for quite a while, and did not contain any noticeable amount of chemicals. want the whole thing to end: They’re tired of answering tourists’ questions about a toxic lake that isn’t toxic, and probably never was. So how did the story get so out of control? “It was surreal. We were getting calls from people as far away as Alaska asking if we were OK, if there was Agent Orange in our water,” says Becky Rushton, owner of Joseph’s Indian Lodge Hotel. Rushton is also presi- dent of the local chamber of commerce, so she knows when Joseph makes national news. Last year, Joseph was featured in a New York Times story touting the area’s quaint hotels. This year, Joseph’s (unsubstan- tiated) Agent Orange scare made the national political publication The Hill, and even Russia-owned pro- paganda network Sputnik News wrote about the toxic fears. Rushton says locals have always regarded their lake as clean, and knew that empty barrels used to be dumped in it or used as flo- tation devices. The lake is tested for certain herbicides regularly, and had never tested positive. “I was never overly con- cerned about it,” says Rush- ton, “But I was worried about business and rumors. Once a rumor gets started, it’s hard to stop.” So, the facts: Divers did report finding at least one barrel labeled “2,4-D or 2,4,5-T”. Both 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T are herbicides that, when combined at maxi- mum strength with a few other chemicals, create Agent Orange. But barrels labeled like this would con- tain lower concentrations of one of the two chemicals, not both. While 2,4,5-T has since been banned in the United States, 2,4-D is still available for agricultural use. asking about Agent Orange. In the meantime, the EPA began documenting and removing barrels from the lake. They found five: one labeled “2,4,D or 2,4,5- T”, one labeled “Hosp” and one labeled “Diesel.” They also removed two other bar- rels that looked like they might be intact. They were full of lakewater. The EPA also tested water from the barrels, from the town’s drinking supply, and from the sediment at the bottom of the lake. All came back clean. While the EPA was on site last month, recreation- ists continued to use the lake. (“It was full of people fishing,” Anderson says.) But two visitors to Rush- ton’s hotel left after heading to the lake and seeing the EPA hazmat team. “They said, ‘You know, we’re just gonna move on. We’d like our money back.’” It’s unclear what kind of economic impact the barrel scare is having on Joseph’s summer tourism season. “It’s been slower than normal,” Rushton says. “But that might just be the weather. I know other properties have had can- cellations. 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