The Oregon Military Department’s Camp Umatilla at the former Umatilla Chemical Depot west of Hermiston is enjoying a building boom.

Remodeling and renovation of existing facilities are underway, as well as new construction to house and feed infantry trainees.

“We’ve had $56 million in construction so far,” said retired Col. Todd Farmer, now civilian installations manager for the state military department. “We’ll spend about another $22 million over the next two years.”

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley on Friday, July 29, announced they secured funding for community projects across Oregon in the fiscal year 2023 Senate appropriations bills, including $6 million to Camp Umatilla for housing construction.

The Oregon Military Department also is renaming Camp Umatilla as the Raymond F. Rees Training Center in honor of Maj. Gen. Fred Rees of Helix, four times former Oregon National Guard adjutant general.

“It will be the premier Guard infantry training facility in the western region,” Oregon Army National Guard Chief of Staff Col. Alan Gronewold said. “The renaming ceremony is Sept. 29.”

A new entrance to Camp Umatilla was under construction Wednesday, July 27, amid several more projects on the base. An arborist was operating on 80 year-old patients providing shade on the busy camp’s streets and exercise yards.

“There will be an interchange between the entrance and the railroad tracks,” Farmer said. “One exit will be for Morrow County, and the other will take you to Umatilla County.”

Continuity of operations centers

A backup operations center for the Army Corps of Engineers also is in development at Camp Umatilla.

“It’s a continuity site for both Seattle and Portland,” Gronewold said.

The Corps and the Oregon National Guard share two buildings on the base. In an emergency, the Corps can use one structure for administration of its Seattle, Portland and Walla Walla districts, while the other is suitable as a helicopter hangar and aviation command center. The airport in Pendleton could participate as well. A Magnitude 8 or 9 Cascadia zone earthquake or other major emergency might temporarily knock out the Guard’s Salem operations center.

“It’s designed to operate for 72 hours with its own resources,” Gronewold said. “Then air and ground assets would arrive from all over the country, in a Katrina-like operation.”

Gronewold also said the Guard plans on building its own backup emergency operations center at Klamath Falls, home to the 173rd Fighter Wing at Kingsley Field Air National Guard Base.

Gronewold commanded the Army Aviation Support Facility at Pendleton for 10½ years and served as state Army aviation officer at Salem. He deployed to the Middle East as commander of the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade from April 2021 to January. The helicopter and drone formation was headquartered in Kuwait, but deployed forward to Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Farmer served eight years with the Army National Guard at Pendleton, both in the old hangar and the new AASF, commanded the facility at Salem and also was a state Army aviation officer.

The southeast tip of Camp Umatilla lies near the intersection of Interstates 82 and 84. It is in both Umatilla and Morrow counties. Its southern boundary skirts the railroad and Gun Club Road westward.

Ongoing projects at the base include construction of new barracks and security checkpoints and renovation of World War II-era structures. A shortage of concrete supplies has slowed building, Farmer said.

Camp Umatilla received approval for construction of $27 million barracks buildings in the National Defense Authorization Act in 2020 and 2021. The barracks will increase the National Guard’s ability to house visiting soldiers by 448 beds, according to a 2021 press release.

“We’re going to preserve the historic district,” Farmer said. “The exterior of the old HQ building will be maintained, but the interior will be thoroughly modernized.”

Regional training institute, more

Camp Umatilla hosts an Army National Guard training institute capable of providing individual and group schooling for infantry units up to battalion size — 300-800 soldiers. The site contains a weapons firing range and spaces for small maneuvers and tracked vehicle driver training. Its infrastructure supports weekend and annual drill periods while simultaneously hosting regional training institute classes.

Every state has an RTI, but Camp Umatilla’s center is one of only two infantry schools west of the Mississippi capable of housing and feeding 120 soldiers at a time. Class cycles vary in duration, from five-day tactical certification courses to 19-day advanced leadership courses, which take place monthly throughout the year.

Oregon Training Command and National Guard units use the regional training institute facilities during non-class times to fulfill weekend and annual training missions. Tactical skills trained include weapons qualifications, land navigation and wheeled and tracked vehicle driving.

A new, specially designed RTI was built in 2020, but its dedication ceremony was not held due to the pandemic, Gronewold said. The continental U.S. has only nine infantry RTIs. The rest are devoted to schools for different combat and supporting arms.

“The school is state of the art,” he said. “Units from all over the West come here to train here. The only comparable facility is in Mississippi. Active Army and Reserve infantry, as well as Guard cycle through here.”

A new, $12 million heavy machine gun firing range on the Navy’s nearby Boardman bombing reservation is nearing completion.

“Negotiations with the Navy started in 2002,” Farmer explained, “but a tentative agreement wasn’t reached until 2012. Environmental impact statements and COVID slowed us down, but now in 2022, it’s finally finished.”

A military and civilian unmanned aerial vehicle flight test facility is coming to the Navy bombing range this year as well.

The Department of Defense maintains 74 STARBASE Academies at Active, Reserve and Guard armed forces bases in every state and Puerto Rico. The military used them to encourage fourth to seventh graders to study science, technology, engineering and math. Oregon has four, including at Camp Umatilla.

“Kids have so much fun that they don’t notice they’re learning STEM disciplines,” Farmer said. “We’re happy to give back to local communities which support us so much.”

STARBASE Umatilla conducts two five-day sessions each summer, at which students build and program BattleBots to fight each other, OMD Public Affairs Officer Lt. Col. Stephen Bomar said.

History of the siteThe installation began life as the U.S. Army’s Umatilla Depot in 1941, before America entered World War II. Its mission was to store and maintain a variety of military items, from blankets to ammunition.

The depot took on its chemical weapons role in 1962, storing 12% of the nation’s stockpile. Eight other depots held the rest. Chemical weapons stored there consisted of live munitions and containers, each holding 1 short ton of GB or VX organophosphate nerve agents or HD sulfur mustard blister vesicant. From 1990 to 1994, the facility reorganized to prepare for eventual closure, shipping all conventional ammunition and supplies to other installations.

The Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility was designed for the destruction of the weapons at the depot. It was completed in 2001. The Army began weapons disposal on Sept. 8, 2004, and completed it on Oct. 25, 2011. According to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity, the facility destroyed 220,604 munitions and containers containing 3,717 short tons of GB, VX and HD via high-temperature incineration, representing 100% of the base’s stockpile.

Dismantling of the chemical disposal facility began in August 2013, and the base was expected to be transferred for state and private use by early 2015. The Columbia Development Authority, the local organization redeveloping the depot, pushed back the timeline, first to 2016 and then to 2017 and into 2018, due to complications during cleanup. After decommissioning and transfer of land, about 7,400 acres of the depot went to the Oregon Military Department for a training facility.

Some 5,600 acres were transferred to the national wildlife refuge system and around 4,000 to industrial, agricultural and right of way development. A transportation package passed by the Legislature in 2017 set aside money for the Columbia Development Authority to improve access from Interstate 82.

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation also is a stakeholder in former depot lands. Its 20,000 acres covered ancestral Umatilla tribal hunting and gathering grounds, including religiously-significant Coyote Coulee. CTUIR Economic Development Director Bill Tovey told Oregon Public Broadcasting in 2019 he was eager to see the land returned to the tribes so they can begin rehabilitating it.