Groups request detailed information on chemical weapons destruction here

By Ben Cunningham
Assistant Metro Editor
03-24-2006

Some Calhoun County residents and a Kentucky non-profit group want more information about the destruction of chemical weapons at the Anniston Army Depot. An Anniston group called Serving Alabama's Future Environment (SAFE), and the Chemical Weapons Working Group, based in Berea, Ky., sent a request Thursday to Army officials in Maryland asking for detailed daily, monthly and quarterly reports about operations at the Anniston Chemical Demilitarization Facility.

Officials with the groups said it was the second time they'd requested the information. Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, said there was no formal response to the first request, made in August 2004.

Williams and local residents said Thursday that they believe the information they're looking for is reasonable, but that they're willing to negotiate if officials with the Army's Chemical Materials Agency don't agree.

"Before we can start discussing the details we have to get some kind of response," Williams said.

"We're formalizing this request, and basically making the assertion that this is not unreasonable," said Rufus Kinney, a Jacksonville resident and member of the local group Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration.

Mike Abrams, a spokesman for the ACNDF, referred questions about the request to CMA officials at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

Abrams said he believes the groups likely got a response to their request in 2004.

"They probably did not like the answer they got," Abrams said.

CMA officials in Maryland could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The groups' request asks for a daily report, with details on the operation of furnaces at the plant, the number and types of weapons transported to the plant and destroyed, the amount of chemical agent destroyed, any agent detection alarms set off and the reasons, and information on worker safety.

Information requested on a monthly basis includes details on hazardous waste produced at the plant and any environmental permit violations. The groups asked for information on the destruction schedule and Westinghouse Anniston's contract on a quarterly basis.

Williams said other chemical weapons sites around the country typically provide more information than Anniston, but not everything the groups would like to see. He said requests to those sites would be made soon.

"Quite frankly in our opinion, ANCDF in particular is a very closed situation," Williams said. "I think if we can crack the nut there, we may get a trickle-down effect at some of the other sites."

The Anniston Army Depot has since the 1960s stored weapons containing the nerve agents sarin and VX and mustard blister agent. Required by treaties with the former Soviet Union to destroy the Cold War-era weapons, the Army built an incinerator to destroy the Anniston stockpile. Facilities at sites around the country are destroying other chemical stockpiles.

Weapons destruction at Anniston began in August 2003, with Westinghouse Anniston operating the plant under contract. On March 2, Army officials announced that the last weapons containing sarin had been destroyed. Destruction of VX weapons is expected to begin in June or July, Abrams said.