Speaker's Stand ... On deserving more than press releases

By Craig Williams
Special to The Star
08-26-2004

Re the Aug. 11 “One year of safe achievement” letter by ANCDF management, let’s peel back the rhetoric. On June 6, The Star covered Washington Group’s self-presented safety award and subsequently printed Troy Turner’s column apologizing for printing questions raised about the validity of the award: “...the reason for this story was to celebrate safety. That is how we should have reported it without hard evidence of anything to the contrary.” Turner needn’t have apologized. There is hard evidence to the contrary that WG may not have deserved awarding itself. Notwithstanding a general clamp down on operational data from ANCDF, information about disturbing incidents does occasionally get out to the public. The March 1 VX detection at the Depot boundary remains a mystery and raises serious questions about overall monitoring effectiveness. Now we’ve learned about “serious” incidents in January, February and March (which clearly predate the June ‘safety award’) in which agent was spilled onto workers (“OSHA cites incinerator operator for violations” (The Star, Aug. 19). It took a Freedom of Information Act request to force disclosure of these events. On the rare occasion when ANCDF does issue news releases, we learn of alarms, agent migrations and technical problems. Even then, residents aren’t given an honest assessment of these incidents. Instead they read predictable public relations clichés: “there was no harm to the public, workers or environment,” or “at no time did agent get out of engineering controls,” etc. However, until the Army and WG comply with the formal request made by local residents for a continuing flow of information about operations, there is no way to determine what is real and what is simply Army spin meant to perpetuate an illusion of safety. Spokesman Mike Abrams knows this information could easily be made available via computer, not requiring “reams of paper,” the excuse he used to shirk ANCDF’s responsibilities. If everything’s as safe and compliant as they proclaim, ANCDF management should jump at the opportunity to prove it. But, instead of providing real data, they continue to opt for superficial press releases and an occasional op-ed claiming things are fine. Craig Williams is director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky.

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