Anniston Star
January 7, 2003

Troy Turner: Cliff notes 101 on tough topic

The beauty of getting your money's worth in a 50-cent newspaper is the variety.

We can promote a story and put it on the front page all we want, but you might choose to flip right past it for the sports, classifieds, obits or letters to the editor.

Nevertheless, a series worth investing an hour or so by reading would be the one that appeared in this newspaper last week regarding chemical weapons.

Reading it might help you knock some of the cobwebs off an obviously complacent issue you're tired of hearing about, and it would help you gear up for becoming prepared, just in time.

If you haven't read it, maybe you'll at least note this summary.

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The Anniston chemical weapons incinerator is scheduled to begin destruction of weapons between January and March, with start date as early as the middle of this month.

Almost everyone, including experts, opponents and proponents of incineration, the military, independent scientists and environmentalists all agree on one thing: The weapons need to be destroyed, and the greatest risk is continued storage.

The Anniston facility holds more leakers - that is, chemical munitions that are leaking their deadly contents - than any of the nation's other seven stockpiles.

Incineration remains a means of destruction endorsed by many scientists and researchers, and last week's series revealed that the Anniston incinerator must adhere to air quality control standards much stricter than most other local industries that involve air emissions.

We, meaning the general public and local emergency responders, are not prepared to handle an accident or terrorist attack that would result in the release of chemical agents into our community.

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The last point from this list bothers me the most.

"A Matter of Trust" was the name of the series, which pointed out that blame can be pointed to all levels for the lack of our preparedness, from local to federal.

A follow-up story Sunday showed that our local officials want to destroy the weapons as soon as we are prepared. But sadly, the one element in this big, ugly scenario that might keep us from beginning the cleanup is the one element that should already have been in place many, many years ago: emergency pre-paredness.

Here we sit - still today - with the only official plan being that of running for your life if something out there nasty happens.

A sister site in Oregon, using the same type of incinerator, is light years ahead of us in preparations. While we bickered all this time, they formed a governing board and tied start-up to a unified preparedness plan. Ours was tied to locals saying gimme, gimme, gimme, and the Feds saying no, no, no. Both went overboard; neither accomplished much to make us safer.

We're finally being told that soon, something more than running will be the plan. Therefore, it's time for you to shake the cobwebs off of this messy issue, and pay attention when new education and materials do come.

Your life could depend on it.