(The following is excerpted from "Chemical Weapons Disposal and
Environmental Justice" written by Suzanne Marshall PhD. and published by
the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, November, 1996, with funding from the
Educational Foundation of America.)
The 15,000 acres of the Lexington Bluegrass Army Depot (LBAD) lie between the
beautiful rolling hills of the Bluegrass and the Appalachian Mountains in eastern Kentucky,
just south of Richmond, Madison County. Similar to other installations, LBAD was
established during World War II as a storage facility and began receiving chemical weapons
in 1942. Its last nerve gas shipments arrived in 1962. The Army provided jobs which
were badly needed in a region of Appalachia that chronically suffers from unemployment
and underemployment (Davies, 1995)
The population of Madison County is approximately 57, 500, a large percentage of whom
live within a 6.2-mile radius of the depot. The poverty rate is 21.21%, significantly higher
than the national average and reflective of the historic poverty of Appalachia. Of
Richmond's 21,155 residents, 31.65% live below the poverty level and in nearby Berea,
17.36% of its 9,126 residents live below the poverty level. Overall, the state of Kentucky
has a 19.03% poverty rate (Bureau of the Census, 1990). Since the late 19th century, the
residents of eastern Kentucky and Appalachia have been subjected to economic and
environmental exploitation due to timber, coal mining and other industries. It has been,
paradoxically, a land of rich natural resources with a poor, oppressed people.
The region is largely white. Madison County has about a 5% African-American population
and Richmond a 10% population of African Americans (Bureau of the Census, 1990).
However, it was an African-American community that suffered most in August 1979 when
a smoke pot accident at the depot released a toxic cloud and caused 45 people to be
hospitalized. The problem was compounded when the Army denied its culpability until
later when it admitted the cloud originated from LBAD.
Although the affected communties of this ninth site are relatively free of toxic industries,
there is a very high percentage of low-income residents--more than twice the national
average in some communities--and it would be environmentally unjust to impose on the
residents the environmental risks that come with incineration when there are safer
technologies, which the Army has refused to consider. Local citizens in these communities
have been very vocal and highly organized in their opposition to the Army's decision to
incinerate but their protests have been ignored.
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