Anniston Star
August 14, 2003
.
LETTERS
Speaker's Stand ... On incineration and Judge Jackson
By Craig Williams, Director
Chemical Weapons Working Group
08-14-2003
It is unfortunate that U.S. Federal Judge T.P. Jackson held citizens groups
to a standard of proof impossible to meet during last Friday’s hearings to
stop the incinerator in Alabama.
Judge Jackson said we hadn’t “proven irreparable harm will flow” from operating
the incinerator.
The evidence we presented showed the history of the Army’s previous incinerators
in Utah and the Pacific included agent releases, worker exposures, emissions
non-compliances and other technical problems and regulatory violations.
Coupled with the lack of fulfilling promises to the community’s special needs
populations and school children not being adequately prepared to respond
during an incident, we went beyond the standards we interpret as the law.
As we see it the law was created to be preventative, not reactionary. Applying
the judge’s interpretation to endangered species, no species would ever be
protected until after it was extinct!
Similarly, in Jackson’s view, it will take just the harm we’re attempting
to prevent before the threshold of “proof” he saw necessary to protect the
people of Anniston and the surrounding region can be reached.
This creates a significant paradox for the activist community. On the one
hand we are trying to prevent harm, on the other we can only do so after
harm has occurred. A classic Catch-22.
Notwithstanding the judge’s ruling, we, on behalf of our members in Alabama,
continue to oppose the operation of the incinerator .
It’s interesting that during the “shakedown” burns which began Saturday,
the monitoring for hazardous emissions (other then agent itself) was not
required. What came out of the stack on Saturday? What will come out over
the next 720 hours of operations before the trial burn (used to identify
if the emissions meet the permitted standards)? The answer is no one, not
even the Army and ADEM, can tell anyone — they simply don’t know.
Protective ... harmless? Hardly.
The burden of proof should be on the Army to “prove” the operations do not
create harm — but they can’t even tell you what was emitted from burning
that first rocket and won’t be able to do any better over the next month
while burning hundreds of rockets.
The day before the ruling, the Utah incinerator failed its trial burns for
M-55 Rockets (VX) — apparently the level of PCBs (and other poisons) emitted
was above the regulatory standard.
I believe folks in Anniston know what PCBs are.
The Army relied, in part, on the “maturity and capability” of the Utah incinerator
to make their case on Friday — but after 7 years of operations, it couldn’t
even pass a carefully orchestrated trial burn.
Would the ANCDF have passed a similar trial burn on Saturday?
There is no answer ... this is not protective.
At 10 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 16, at the invitation of residents of Anniston
and the surrounding area, citizens will march to bring to trial this program
in the “court of public opinion.”
We urge those that feel Judge Jackson’s ruling did not achieve justice to
join with us.
Craig Williams
Chemical Weapons Working Group
Berea, Ky.
.