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Local
News
False alarms cause temporary halts at incinerator
By Ben Cunningham
Assistant Metro Editor
01-12-2007
Around 8:16 p.m., the monitor, located in the exhaust stack of the chemical weapons incinerator, indicated the presence of VX, the nerve agent contained in M-55 rockets workers currently are destroying, according to Mike Abrams, a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency. Workers stopped disposal operations and put on protective masks. Within five minutes, Abrams said, the monitor's reading had returned to zero, and technicians suspected the alarm was false. A second reading on the same monitor at 9:41 p.m. also indicated the presence of VX. Again, the monitor's readings returned to zero, this time within about 20 minutes. Technicians at an on-site chemical laboratory confirmed that both readings were false. They finished the analysis of the first alarm at 9:57 p.m. and the second at 11:32 p.m., Abrams said. Local civilian emergency agencies were notified of the alarms, but the indicated levels of nerve agent were low enough that no action outside the facility was required, Abrams said. Dan Long, director of the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency, confirmed that his staff was informed of the alarms shortly after they happened. He said no action would have been required even if the readings had been correct. "It was a low level, so [the nerve agent] would have stayed right there at the facility," Long said. In a statement issued Thursday, the Army’Äôs project site manager at the facility, Timothy Garrett, said workers correctly followed all procedures during the incident. "We must and do treat all readings as if they are real until we can verify and prove otherwise," Garrett said. |
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Ben Cunningham is business editor and assistant metro editor for The Star
Contact Ben Cunningham
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256-235-3543 256-241-1991 bcunningham@annistonstar.com |