Anniston Star
August 8, 2002

FEMA lists additional schools to receive overpressurization

By Matthew Creamer
Star Staff Writer

Federal officials Wednesday revealed plans to provide more than 20 schools and daycare centers in Calhoun County with the top level of protection against a chemical weapons accident.

At a meeting packed with county and state leaders, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said that at least 22 buildings will receive equipment that would pump clean air into them during an accident. These are located within roughly eight miles of the chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot. FEMA officials said that four more schools, all situated beyond this radius, could soon be added to the list.

The development was a victory for county leaders and Gov. Don Siegelman, who had demanded a wide range of protective equipment before the Army begins to burn nerve-agent-filled rockets at the incinerator later this year. A demand for the schools protection, known as overpressurization, was part of Siegelman's recently scaled-back lawsuit against the FEMA and the Army.

"We are extremely satisfied," Siegelman said in an interview with The Star. "Having all the
children taken care of is one of the last important safety issues to be dealt with."

FEMA said it will use $15 million it already has to pay for the work on Anniston and Oxford city schools and county schools in Weaver, Saks and Ohatchee. The Army Corps of Engineers, which already has completed similar work on a handful of schools in the communities right outside the depot, will begin construction as soon as the money is in hand. The work will be done in the order of the schools' proximity to the incinerator.

For the four facilities that are farther from the depot, as much as $10 million extra will be
necessary, FEMA officials said. These schools are Weaver High School, Donoho School, Faith Christian Academy and Golden Springs Elementary.

Craig Conklin, director of the agency's technological services division, said these schools would be added to a recommendation that would be sent to his superiors. "We're going to work as fast as we can on this," he said.

Conklin said FEMA would seek additional funds either from the Army, which is actually
responsible for all the funding for emergency precautions around its chemical weapons
stockpiles, or as a congressional appropriation.

A representative from the Army Corps of Engineers said that the project will not be complete until 2004 because of difficulties in procuring necessary equipment that is made by few manufacturers.

Those who pushed FEMA for the funds mixed their optimism with a measure of caution after the agency announced its plan.

"Their final proposal is acceptable," Calhoun County Schools Superintendent Jacky Sparks said. "It's just a matter of it materializing."

Early this year, Sparks, along with the Calhoun County Commission and Emergency
Management Agency, set into motion a grass- roots effort that resulted in thousands of letters from parents and teachers demanding overpressurization for schools that were on a list of special facilities approved by FEMA in 1996.

That there was any optimism after Wednesday's meeting at the Calhoun County Board of
Education building represented an about-face in a history of tense gatherings on this issue. FEMA had long resisted Calhoun County's demands for this level of protection, saying that scientific testing showed that the expensive equipment was unnecessary. Local schools officials, however, countered that parents with children in the range of the Anniston Army Depot's chemical stockpile needed the reassurance that only this level could give.

Initially faced with the prospect of a lesser kind of protection, Donoho School President George "Dee" Gorey said, "The problem is, there's absolutely no way I can sell that to a group of my parents."

"It has already cost me students because of this," he said. "It is a problem for us from an
emotional and psychological perspective."

The proposal was released at a strange meeting that saw FEMA officials offer one plan, only to stop the meeting and slip into an adjoining room before reconvening minutes later to announce an intention to push for an expanded version. One agency official expecting a more intimate setting expressed surprise about the crowd and the several television cameras that recorded the meeting.

The agency's apparent flexibility on the issue did little to win over many in the audience who were resentful that these issues are being settled now, just months before the incinerator fires up. Some questioned whether additional schools would have to be added in upcoming months when planners take into account updated toxicity data on the agents at the depot. And some simply questioned whether the money would come at all.

"I don't see how anything's going to happen unless somebody files an injunction," said County Commissioner Eli Henderson.

Siegelman withdrew a motion for injunction against the incinerator last month, after FEMA
released millions in funding for controversial protective equipment. The lawsuit, however, will remain in place for the immediate future.

"We're going to make sure all our 'i's have been dotted and our 't's have been crossed,"
Siegelman said.

An aide to Rep. Bob Riley, Siegelman's opponent in the upcoming election, said the
congressman will continue to watch the issue.

"A $15 million commitment is a good start," said Dan Gans, Riley's chief of staff. "But we plan to work hard to make sure that all of schools that require overpressurization get it."

It remains to be seen what level of protection nursing homes, correctional facilities and hospitals on the county's list of demands will receive. FEMA's Conklin said an additional meeting will be scheduled to discuss that issue.

FEMA has funding in place to overpressurize the following schools and daycare
centers:

Anniston High School
Anniston Middle School
C.E. Hanna Elementary School
Cobb Elementary School
Constantine Elementary School
Ohatchee Elementary School
Ohatchee High School
Oxford Elementary School
Oxford High School
Oxford Jr. High School
Sacred Heart Catholic School
Saks Elementary School
Saks High School
Saks Middle School
Tenth Street Elementary School
Trinity Christian School
Weaver High School
Evelyn D. Hall Head Start
Constantine Early Head Start
17th Street Baptist Daycare
Rest Haven Missionary Baptist Church
Lincoln Elementary School (Talladega County)

FEMA could seek additional funding to overpressurize the following schools:

Weaver Elementary School
Donoho School
Faith Christian Academy
Golden Springs Elementary School

The following schools already are overpressurized:

Alexandria Elementary School
Alexandria High School
Bynum School
Coldwater Elementary School
Foursquare Christian School
Randolph Park Elementary School
Wellborn Elementary School
Wellborn High School