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Editorials
09-20-2006
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It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? "Weapons incineration could be finished by 2010." That was the headline that greeted readers of The Star on Sunday morning. For many of us, it was another tangible sign that, yes, Calhoun County may indeed be nearing a day without concern over the storage and destruction of Cold War-era chemical weapons within our boundaries. Regardless of your stance on incineration vs. neutralization, Sunday's update was good. Twenty-three percent of Anniston's stockpile has been eliminated since the incinerator began operations in 2003. The last of the GB-filled munitions were destroyed in March. The VX campaign appears to be proceeding as planned, with more than 8,000 VX-filled rockets and more than 8,000 gallons of liquid VX being eliminated since late July. If things go well, the VX campaign could end sometime in 2008, with the elimination of mustard-agent munitions to follow. Progress. But safety is more important than dates or progress reports. Don't forget that. Tim Garrett, the Army's project site manager at Anniston's incinerator, doesn't like to discuss deadlines. They're irrelevant, considering what's at stake. Understandably, he pushes safety over marks on the calendar. The critics of Anniston's incinerator -- specifically the Chemical Weapons Working Group, which believes the facility should neutralize, not burn, the mustard-agent munitions -- would have ample ways to criticize if the rush to meet a completion date caused lapses in concern for Calhoun County's public safety. In Anniston, however, that doesn't seem to be the case; when bolts broke during a test of the deactivation furnace in May, the Army seems to have taken the proper corrective measures that sided with safety more than with rushing the facility back into operation. Calhoun County residents have long wanted these chemical weapons gone. Slowly, the weapons themselves and the threat they pose are being eliminated. Imagine the day when Calhoun County and the city of Anniston no longer must combat the public-relations nightmare of having a portion of the nation's chemical-weapons stockpile in our back yard. Even so, Mike Abrams, spokesman for Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, told The Star's Matt Kasper: "We still have a fair way to go for the total munitions." Which is why we should never lose sight of the critical element -- safety. This community should be just as excited, if not more so, about a headline detailing another day of safe disposal as it is about a story updating the program's statistical progress. Project completion by 2010 is a wonderful possibility. Project completion with public safety undamaged sounds much better. |
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