Assistant Metro Editor
The discovery initially was thought to be significant enough to alert personnel at the Anniston Army Depot to take action, while emergency management officials were put on standby. However, the event was downgraded a short time after the initial detection of chemical agent, said Cathy Coleman, a spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Activity.
“That’s happened before, but it’s not all the time, it’s not frequent,” Coleman said.
Workers were entering the chemical weapons storage igloo to find the leaking rocket in a procedure Coleman called routine. They detected GB in the rocket’s shipping tube and notified the Anniston Chemical Activity’s emergency operations center.
Workers notified the emergency operations center as part of a requirement to give chemical weapons officials five minutes to alert local emergency management officials of any possible agent event.
Officials at the Anniston Chemical Disposal Facility did not detect any agent in their perimeter air monitors and won’t check them because of the event, said spokesman Mike Abrams.
“We know there will not be any readings, because the event is so minor,” Abrams said.
David Ford, a spokesman for the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency, confirmed his agency’s notification, which put the agency’s emergency operations staff personnel on standby.
Nothing came of the action, Ford said, and no public notification was required, because the event was downgraded shortly after the discovery.
Chemical activity workers placed the rocket in a storage container and moved it to an igloo with other leaking rockets found in the Anniston Army Depot’s cache of chemical weapons, Coleman said.