Anniston Star
September 6, 2003

U.S. chemical demilitarization program said 'in turmoil'

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
09-06-2003

The Department of Defense must make changes to its chemical weapons destruction program to safely get rid of the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile on schedule and within budget, says a new report to Congress.

And, incineration opponents asked a federal judge this week to reconsider her dismissal of some of the claims in their lawsuit against the Anniston incinerator.

Meanwhile, work is continuing at the incinerator.

By Friday afternoon, the facility had drained, cut up and burned 1,371 M55 rockets since operations began Aug. 9.

The Army said it would do another bulk burn of GB nerve agent, or sarin, drained from the rockets. It plans to incinerate 300 gallons of sarin, bringing the total to more than 1,300 gallons.

The chemical weapons study was released Friday by the General Accounting Office, the investigative branch of Congress.

It says the Chemical Demilitarization Program, begun in the late 1980s, “remains in turmoil” because it lacks stable leadership, and has organizational and planning problems.

Citing delays with the eight chemical weapons disposal sites around the country, including Anniston, the report says the Defense Department risks not accomplishing its main mission — destroying the stockpile by 2007, as required by international treaty.

The report came two days after the Pentagon said it had asked for an extension to a major treaty deadline.

Under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the United States is supposed to destroy 45 percent of its stockpile by April 2004.

The Pentagon asked that it be granted an extension to 2007. About a quarter of the stockpile has been destroyed so far.

Incineration opponents have been trying to stop the Army from burning the weapons in Anniston, urging that a method called neutralization be used instead.

A coalition of a dozen citizens’ groups filed a lawsuit against the incinerator in November.

The groups, including the local Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration and the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, charge that the incinerator violates federal laws.

Judge Karen Owen Bowdre, of U.S. District Court in Birmingham, dismissed three of the counts against the incinerator, saying she lacked jurisdiction over two, and the statute of limitations had run out on a third having to do with equal protection.

The plaintiffs claim that the Army is violating federal law by burning weapons in an area with a large minority and low-income population, while using another neutralization in other communities.

“If the incinerator were in Golden Springs or east Anniston, they wouldn’t have started it,” said Rev. N. Q. Reynolds resident of the Calhoun County SCLC, one of the plaintiffs’ groups. “But it’s right in the middle of some poor and working class white folk and black folk. I think that’s quite unfair to us.”

Mike Abrams, spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Weapons Disposal Facility, said it is Army policy not to comment on litigation.

Pentagon officials did not return calls about the GAO report Friday. But comments included in the report say the Pentagon agrees with the GAO’s recommendations, and is working to implement them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.