Our locall newpaper (the Columbian--Vancouver Washington) front page has a story about the Umatilla Oregon Chemiacl Storage Depot...it gave off a false alarm on Thursday...and did not go off on Saturday when there was a leak of Sarin from a chemical weapon. Officials say the leak was minute and in a containment area and not a threat to the public. However many workers walked off the job in an attempt to draw attention to their concern about the faulty system. According to officials it has failed either giving off a false warning or not giving a real warning whenn needed 6 times in the last year. The false warning Thursday was attributed to the human error of an operator...but the director of the chemical stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program strongly disagrees that it was human error. Of course this could be just cooincidence in the timing, but I think it is something to be aware of...Cindi

-- Cindi Fisher (CindiPacha@aol.com), January 04, 2000