Anniston Star
July 26, 2003

Agencies to use new chemical agent toxicity standards

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
06-26-2003

MOBILE

In the next 30 days, the Army and local emergency planners will meet another of Senator Richard. Shelby's requirements for starting the chemical weapons incinerator, officials said Wednesday.

The Army and state and local emergency management agencies will start using new nerve and blister agent toxicity standards in their computer systems that model and predict the effects of an accidental chemical agent release.

Because the new standards were used in planning for protection of the population around the depot, where 2,254 tons of obsolete chemical weapons rest in reinforced concrete bunkers, the change will not affect the protective equipment being distributed to the community, according to Delois Champ, director of the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency.

But the change could affect the instructions officials communicate to the public about how to respond to a specific situation involving an accidental release of nerve or blister agent.

"There's nothing new the general public will be doing when it comes to toxicity standards," said Mike Myirski, meteorologist for the Chemical Materials Agency, the branch of the Army responsible for destroying the weapons as required by international treaty.

But, Myirski said at a conference this week in Mobile, local officials should make sure residents understand the toxicity standards and nerve agent health effects, in part to prevent panic. For example, a low level of agent could escape into a community, setting off warning systems and causing minor, temporary health effects, but not warranting a full-scale response by the public, Myirski said.

By September, the Army plans to implement the new standards at all eight sites in the United States where chemical weapons are currently stored, Myirski said. But it is moving forward early in Anniston, where in July the Army hopes to start burning weapons in a billion-dollar incinerator.

Earlier this year, in a letter to the Secretary of the Army, Shelby said he would not support startup until local schools were protected, people with special needs were addressed, the Army agreed to activate the warning system for the people nearest the depot, and the toxicity standards were adopted.

The standards, known as acute exposure guideline levels (AEGLs) are the levels at which people start to have various health effects from airborne chemicals. The effects can range from mild and reversible, such as burning eyes, to severe and lasting, and include death.

The old standards were developed by the Army, and are based on the effects chemical weapons have on young, healthy, male soldiers.

"We've been applying them because we thought that they were appropriate for the general population," Myirsky said. "But now we know that they're not."

The new standards, for which activists have long lobbied the Army, were developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, and take into account a general population that includes more vulnerable people such as children or the elderly.

Two kinds of deadly nerve agent, VX and GB, and a type of blister agent, mustard, are stored at the depot. Under the new standards, the level that at which people are at risk from VX is lower, meaning that it would take less of the agent to have a health effect. The level for mustard is higher, and the level for GB is about the same, Myirsky said.

The standards are being developed, not just for chemical weapons, but hundreds of hazardous substances. They are reviewed by the National Research Council, a private, nonprofit institution that advises the government on scientific matters.

"It's kind of the gold standard of peer review," said Dr. Edward Bishop, who is on the NRC. Bishop explained the review process at Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP) Workshop.

Representatives from sites around the country, including Indiana and Oregon, questioned Bishop closely on whether the new values adequately protect people who might be more sensitive to chemicals.

"We're very confident these numbers are protective of the public," Bishop said.

The Army and local emergency management officials need to start using the new standards in their response systems at the same time, since emergency response at the depot is closely tied to emergency response in the community, officials said.

The Army is required to notify state and county environmental management agencies of any agent release at the depot, even if the chemicals never escape the storage bunkers, said Richard Brletich, acting director of the Chemical Materials Agency CSEPP office. But if a potentially harmful plume of agent could go off the depot, the Army would have to give notification within five minutes, he said.

The Army would run a computer model containing the toxicity standards to define the plume and where it would likely travel, and make recommendations for what actions different zones should take - doing nothing or evacuating, for example.

All that data would be sent to local EMAs, and EMA officials for each of the six counties around the depot would decide what to tell their residents to do.

The Calhoun County EMA would follow the Army's recommendation, said director Delois Champ, "unless there was a rare circumstance," such as Interstate 20 being shut down that day.

Bishop and Myirsky said that county representatives should develop a communications plan to explain toxicity levels to residents.

For example, Myirsky said, there could be an instance where a plume went off-site. Although some people who live farther away might feel their eyes burning, if they evacuated instead of simply going indoors, it could endanger people closer to the plume by congesting roads with traffic.

"You may be protecting a very large group of people from a very low-level effect while condemning a smaller group of people to a greater effect," he said. "I know, that's a hard sell to the general public."