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LOCAL NEWS
When danger becomes familiar
By Todd South
Star Staff Writer
02-10-08
Five months ago, Ahna Hurst moved her family into a home near Alabama 202 and County Road 109.
In her new home, the Anniston native heard every noise and siren that echoed from the Anniston Army Depot down the road.
Then she started to wonder just how close her home was to the depot's chemical weapons incinerator.
This fall she found out when leaves fell from the trees.
Through the bare branches she could see the massive building from her own yard.
Hurst knew all about the incinerator when it was first discussed. She said her husband graded the ground where the building was eventually built.
Like many residents, Hurst remembers the controversy, the marches and debates on chemical incineration. But most of those memories were in the back of her mind and chemical weapons were not something she thought about daily.
She never saw the threat until the leaves fell.
All the preparation
There's a $3 million annual budget to run operations for a possible chemical weapons incident within Calhoun County.
And a $28 million upgraded radio system to communicate to residents in the event of an incident.
An estimated $13 million has been spent to and purchase, store, and maintain safety equipment such as shelter-in-place kits, hoods and air filters.
There are siren tests the first Tuesday of each month, evacuation plans, calendars, booths at public events, telephone numbers and a Web site to inform anyone who might be affected by an accident at the chemical weapons incinerator on the Anniston Army Depot.
But all of that is useless if residents don't take precautions and stay prepared for the possibility of an emergency.
After more than 20 years of discussion about incineration and nearly five years of actual operations, Emergency Management Agency officials say residents don't seem to be as concerned about the facility as they once were.
Steve Swafford, Cleburne County executive officer and director of emergency management, heads planning for a possible chemical weapons incident in Cleburne County. He said he thinks many residents are aware, but probably not prepared.
The longer people go without experiencing an emergency situation, the less likely they are to stay vigilant about unseen dangers, he said.
"The risk has been out there a number of years," Swafford said. "It has decreased, but it has not been eliminated."
The danger of complacency
Renee White, a Lincoln resident, said the chemical weapons worried her throughout the process leading up to the incinerator, but she feels better now that operations have gone on without any noticeable incident.
She and her family have the shelter-in-place kit, but she said it's been awhile since they checked the kit or went over emergency plans.
Calhoun County Commissioner Robert Downing doesn't favor incinerating the chemical weapons stockpile; he'd rather see the weapons demilitarized with other methods. Alternative technologies which neutralize the dangerous agents with other chemicals are planned for the stockpiles in Blue Grass, Ky. and Pueblo, Colo.
But Downing said Anniston's process has moved forward without major incident since 2003.
"I don't hear much about it from my constituents anymore," Downing said. "I think everyone in the community in general is fairly comfortable that no major incidents have occurred."
Some residents say they are resigned to the incinerator's presence, but not happy about it.
"I was quite concerned, I feel like it might contribute to health problems," said Costella Ware, an Anniston resident.
Ware said she doesn't think about the facility much anymore, but that's mostly because she can't do anything about it.
Ware and her husband are in their 70s, and she said it would be nearly impossible for them to seal off a room with plastic sheeting in the minutes following an accident.
"If it does happen, we're just doomed," she said.
The immediacy of a chemical accident makes it a whole different emergency to prepare for, Swafford said.
Even with tornadoes, which also happen quickly, he said, there are indicators, such as changing weather patterns, and ways to prepare.
"With the chemical stockpile, an event could happen five minutes from now," Swafford said. "You don't have the time for your thought process to think through what you have to do."
The immediacy of an accident is what makes pre-planning all that much more important, he said.
Jane Kushma is a professor at Jacksonville State University's Institute for Emergency Preparedness.
Kushma wrote in an email response that "disaster awareness and education is a continuous, never-ending process."
The tendency of a community to minimize or deny that disasters can and will happen is a major challenge in emergency preparedness, Kushma wrote.
One step emergency planners take is to "personalize the risk," which, through awareness, gets people to understand how they might be affected by a disaster, she wrote.
Then and now
The Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility has destroyed more than 37 percent of its stockpile, said ANCDF spokesman Mike Abrams.
The depot served as one of the Army's chemical weapons storage facilities throughout the Cold War.
Stockpiles of mines, artillery shells, rockets and containers full of deadly chemical agent sat ready for a confrontation with the Soviets.
But those weapons were never used. They simply aged. Some have leaked, and some still sit untouched in storage bunkers spread out on a section of the depot.
When Congress ordered the Department of Defense to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile in 1985, the depot held 7 percent of the U.S. stockpile, or about 2,254 tons of chemical agent.
ANCDF now holds 1,379 tons of chemical agent, but because the entire U.S. stockpile has been reduced, the depot now houses 9 percent of the overall stockpile.
The three types of chemical agent stored here were GB, VX and mustard.
The facility destroyed its last GB-filled weapons in March 2006. It completed VX-filled rocket destruction in March 2007.
ANCDF officials have said that once those GB weapons and VX rockets were gone, the possibility of an accident that would affect the community was reduced by 97 percent.
An April 2005 report by Science Applications International Corporation analyzed the changes in storage risk.
The report listed VX rockets as the biggest changes in threat. The rockets held 78 percent of the risk, according to the report. And GB rockets constituted 20 percent of the risk.
The risk of different agents was due to GB's chemical nature, properties that make it easier to spread through the air in the event of an accident.
The VX munitions are more hazardous, but less likely to spread off the site, according to ANCDF officials.
Now the facility is destroying VX-filled 155mm artillery shells. Once the VX weapons are completed, the facility will begin destroying mustard agent munitions, which pose less risk for offsite contamination.
Once the VX-filled 155 mm artillery shells are destroyed, the report says, the threat will have been reduced by more than 99 percent.
A battle lost
When the Army first announced plans to incinerate its chemical weapons stockpiles, some area residents argued against the process.
Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky., worked with opponents of incineration in Anniston.
"There was a lot of engagement during a certain period of time down there," Williams said in a phone interview Thursday.
Williams' group defeated plans to incinerate weapons stockpiled in their community and instead will use a chemical neutralization process that does not burn the material — a chief concern for possible pollutants for some critics of incineration.
As years pass, ANCDF officials see fewer and fewer residents come to meetings about the Anniston incinerator and fewer questions are asked. The officials credit a quiet operation to easing community concerns, but say residents should remain vigilant.
Early critics in Anniston spent more than a decade fighting chemical weapons incineration only to lose the fight. Most contacted for this story said they had put it behind them and did not want to talk.
Brenda Lindell and David Christian both were vocal opponents of the incinerator during the lead up to the project.
Contacted this week, neither Christian nor Lindell wanted to talk about the incinerator. Lindell has moved her family to Heflin.
Responsible for safety
Dan Long has worked for the Calhoun County EMA for 17 of the last 19 years. He's seen it grow from a two-person operation in the basement of the county courthouse to a 24-hour monitoring system that would coordinate 45 agencies within Calhoun County and nearly 2,000 personnel during a chemical accident at ANCDF.
Along with personnel and responsibility has come funding. Siren systems, awareness campaigns, improved training and staffing has brought the budget for Calhoun County EMA from about $66,000 a year in 1989 to $3 million in 2008.
Through the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program, Long said, more than 28,500 shelter-in-place kits, 15,387 air filers and 18,924 hoods have been issued.
Every day, Long's staff stare at screens, reading numbers and checking safety infrastructure. They are in constant contact with ANCDF and depot officials, Long said.
Things have come a long way, Long said in a phone interview Thursday.
Television announcements and newspaper advertisements have given way to Web sites with detailed maps, siren-tone samples and contact information, he said.
CSEPP work has provided money for road improvements, training and systems that help with other natural disasters such as possible hazardous waste spills on Interstate 20 and state highways, said Calhoun County Commissioner Eli Henderson.
Henderson was an early supporter of weapons incineration. He spent 10 years tagging leaking weapons in igloos as a depot employee from 1980 to 1990.
Long isn't concerned about awareness of incineration so much as residents' awareness of what to do.
"I find very few people who hear a siren go off and don't know something's wrong," he said.
The area EMAs have their Web sites, send out calendars with emergency contact information and stand by with safety equipment for residents depending on which zone they live in near the incinerator.
But the old adage, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," holds true for many of the EMA officials. All the safety measures and training in the world come back to the individual.
Steve Dover, spokesman for Talladega County EMA, said the organization has to constantly educate residents about the chemical weapons danger, especially new residents as populations change.
"The main thing we try to get across is to know the threats and hazards, and they need to have a plan," he said. "Know the sirens sounds and know what to do based on where you are in the county."
"Complacency is just a part of human nature," Dover said. That's why the EMA tries to let folks know as long as drop of chemical is there it is a threat, he said.
"As every day goes by the threat decreases, but it's still there."
Near the facility, Ahna Hurst sees the building through the trees, hears noises that cause her worry.
She said five months of living about a quarter-mile from the incinerator was enough.
"We're moving out this weekend."
About Todd South
Todd South covers Oxford, Lincoln and Munford for The Star. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia.
Contact Todd South
256-235-3548
256-241-1991
<mailto:tsouth@annistonstar.com>tsouth@annistonstar.com