Burning of Chemical Arms Puts Fear in Wind

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/national/15CHEM.html

September 15, 2002

Burning of Chemical Arms Puts Fear in Wind

By RICK BRAGG with GLYNN WILSON

ANNISTON, Ala. - Some nights, when he is in a worrying mood,

sits by himself in the glow from his television screen and counts the

windows in his home.

It could get in here, he thinks.

It could get in there.

Any place a breath of air could creep in, he says, so could a tiny amount of

deadly vapor, a smidgen of the poison gas that the nearby chemical weapons

incinerator plans to begin burning in October, after years of delay, cost

overruns and safety concerns.

" And I'll be thinking, what could I do? " said Mr. , 74, who lives

just a few miles from the Anniston Army Depot, where stockpiles of deadly

nerve gas and mustard gas, some leaking from corroded shells, rockets and

barrels, await destruction in a $1 billion incineration plant.

" One in each bedroom, two in the living room, one in the kitchen, " he said,

running over the windows in his house, and the room he would try to seal

with plastic wrap if an alarm sounded. " No, I couldn't. I'd just get nervous

and give up. "

The Anniston Army Depot houses 9 percent of the nation's chemical weapons

stockpile, which, under a global treaty that bans such weapons, is supposed

to be destroyed by 2007. But unlike incinerators on ston Island in the

Pacific Ocean and at Tooele, Utah, in the Great Salt Lake Desert, the

weapons bunkers here in this green, hilly region of northeastern Alabama are

surrounded by schools, churches, ball fields, day care centers, nursing

homes and trailer parks.

The Army's scientists say that when the burning starts, at 2,700 degrees,

2,254 tons of the most inhuman weapons ever devised will be rendered little

more dangerous than water vapor. Most of the chemicals are 40 years old or

older and have become obsolete because age has caused the chemicals to

deteriorate and because the necessary guns and launching platforms no longer

exist.

It will take seven years to erase the stockpile, says the Army, which

insists that the risk to the incinerator's neighbors is minimal to

nonexistent and that it is far better to burn these weapons than to let them

sit and crumble.

But similar Army efforts elsewhere, while avoiding disaster, have been

marred by mechanical foul-ups and human error, and some health experts,

environmentalists and residents say it is madness to burn weapons of mass

destruction in a county of 116,000 people.

After years of wrangling with the federal government to finance a $41

million effort to protect the public, and with the scheduled start-up just

weeks away, the county still has not fully carried out the plan. It has not

given residents materials to seal their homes, or protected all the

surrounding schools with equipment that raises the air pressure indoors so

gases outside cannot leak in.

" We are not ready, " said Mike Burney, director of the Calhoun County

Emergency Management Agency. " It has been a constant battle to get the

funding to put a protective plan in place. "

Mr. Burney said the Department of Defense only recently freed up the money

for protection efforts, spurred by a state lawsuit that threatened an

injunction to halt the opening of the incinerator if the federal government

did not pay for pressurizing schools and more. But Mr. Burney conceded that

if burning begins on schedule and if a disaster occurs, he can no more

affect the impact on his community than a weatherman can steer a hurricane.

All he can do, at least until preparations are in place, is watch from a

command post in nearby ville.

With backing from the city's business leaders and only a small number of

opponents willing to raise an outcry, the Army has pushed ahead.

The Department of Defense says that unlike Iraq, whose past use and reported

stockpiling of poison gas have led to talk of war, the United States has

never used chemical weapons. Civilians in Alabama are certainly not going to

be the exception, said B. Abrams, a spokesman for the Anniston

Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

" It is unrealistic to live in fear, or assume that the entire community is

on the edge of Armageddon, " Mr. Abrams said. " This community does not have

to live on edge. "

If there is a chemical leak, alarms will warn people who live within a few

miles of the depot. The 35,000 people who live within nine miles are

expected to have only 8 to 15 minutes to evacuate. For those who cannot get

away quickly, the plan is simple. They have been told to go inside, seal a

room with duct tape and plastic sheeting and wait. Some people, especially

the old, sick and poor, smile bitterly at this.

They can neither run nor hide.

" I could not, with God's help, " said Whitten, 59, who lives about a

mile from the depot fence. He has heart trouble, had a bypass operation

recently and lives with his wife, Lee, in a 1976 model mobile home. " You

couldn't get it airtight if you poured concrete over it, " Mr. Whitten said.

Whatever happens at the incinerator, the residents of western Anniston, near

the depot, have already been poisoned. An immense chemical plant here run by

Monsanto, now called Solutia, leached PCB's into the soil and water over

decades.

But for years, the depot spread only paychecks through the community.

Anniston has always been a pro-military city, even after the loss of its

Army base, Fort McClellan, in 1995. Local and state politicians have long

acted on the assurance that most residents preferred incineration to other

methods - like chemical neutralization - and that only a vocal minority,

mostly college professors and malcontents, opposed it.

" The risk is the stockpile, " Mr. Abrams said. " While some people do not

trust the technology, we do. We can either wait for a silver bullet to

arrive and gamble that nothing will happen, or employ the incinerator. "

But a recent survey, commissioned by a Republican candidate for governor,

found that the community was divided, with slightly fewer than half of the

residents saying they preferred incineration and a slim majority saying they

preferred using existing technology like neutralization or waiting for other

technology.

Gov. Siegelman has said he will look into other ways to destroy the

stockpile, including neutralization. But the people closest to the

incinerator say it is too late. They wonder whether the incinerator will

really shut down once the stockpile is burned, as state and federal laws now

mandate, or whether it will merely shift gears and begin burning hazardous

waste or other materials.

Even spokesmen for the incineration plan concede that the depot's life span

might depend on the whims of future legislators and Congress.

As the start date draws closer, more residents are beginning to wonder who,

if anyone, will protect them in a catastrophe. The Army says it is not its

duty to protect residents in an accidental release.

" I firmly believe that the incinerator should not be burdened with the

safety of the community, when we don't present a realistic threat to the

community, " Mr. Abrams said. Barring a devastating fire, a complete power

failure or an explosion outside containment rooms, he said, there is no

threat to the community.

Even if a chemical does leak, " the chance of it going past the fence line is

about impossible, " Mr. Abrams said. The fence line is about four miles from

the incinerator.

But deFur, a toxicologist and biologist with Virginia Commonwealth

University who has researched incinerators and their health effects, said

Army reports on incineration in the 1990's on ston Island and in Tooele

show " abnormal operations, accidents, spills, things have gone wrong. "

" Even if you have a low probability of something going wrong, " Mr. deFur

said, " if you operate long enough, hard enough and fast enough, then chances

are, something is going to get out. "

In August, a laboratory technician at a chemical weapons incinerator in

Oregon took home a vial of solution containing sarin, a deadly nerve agent,

in what federal officials have called an accidental breach of procedure.

Also in August, the Army and the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed

the accidental release of nerve gas - 45 times higher than the permitted

level - from the incinerator on ston Island as that plant was being

closed.

No one has been seriously hurt, but watchdog groups say the frequency of

incidents is troubling.

Craig , director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, an

organization that has fought off plans to build an incinerator in Kentucky,

said the " pattern of detecting chemical agent in material that has been run

through the incinerators is very disturbing. " Mr. added, " It calls

into question the fundamental destruction capability of the whole

incineration approach and should be of great concern in communities where

incinerators are scheduled to operate. "

Mr. deFur said the emissions from the incineration will include PCB's,

dioxin, lead and mercury. Exposure through the air, contaminated water or

food from contaminated soil, he said, is especially dangerous for unborn

children, older people and people with weakened immune systems.

The Army says the incineration will have no long-term effects.

In April, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, accused by

many environmentalists of often rubber-stamping permits for polluting

industries and government agencies, found that the Anniston depot had

violated its permit through improper storage and labeling of hazardous waste

containers.

" The performance of the lab is disturbing, " the agency wrote in an April

letter. " These reports reflect a general attitude of lax management and

offer at least a hint of collusion between the laboratory branches to

prevent any major discrepancies from seeing the light of day. "

Protests here have been small. A recent public hearing drew 75 people.

[A protest rally Sept. 8 attracted about 150, including civil rights figures

like the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who fought segregation a half-century ago.

On Sept. 13, Mr. of the Chemical Weapons Working Group said that

his coalition was preparing a lawsuit to halt the incineration.

Before the rally, Mr. Shuttlesworth said the incinerator was a civil rights

issue because it threatened the weak and poor. " I haven't been to jail since

Reagan was in, and I've got the jailhouse itch, " he said. " Anniston is the

place to break the back of pollution like Birmingham was the place we broke

the back of segregation. " ]

Hattie Howze, 89, taught school here for generations. She has not thought

much about the incinerator.

As with any threat, like a tornado or a thunderstorm, she will respond to

the alarm by taking shelter in her hallway, not by trying to cover her house

in tape and plastic. " I have trouble closing the drapes, " she said.

" I fear it, " she said. " But you just have to trust in the people who are

supposed to know. "

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company |