Good morning; my name is Brenda Lindell and I live in Anniston, Alabama.

I want to begin by thanking our local Calhoun County Commission and Emergency Preparedness Agency for standing up for the safety needs of this community. I also want to thank Congressman Riley, Senators Shelby and Sessions, and Governor Slegelman for their efforts in seeing that emergency preparation needs will be met.

The incineration facilities on Johnston Island and in Tooele, Utah, are the incinerators on which Anniston's incineration facility is designed. Operations of those incinerators have proved that there will be agent releases into this community. It is documented that these incinerators emit nerve agent, mustard agent, PCBs, lead, mercury, cadmium, dioxins, furans, and numerous other toxins on an ongoing basis. Incinerators are a threat to the environment and to the safety of people who live near them. There are more than 75,000 people living within a 9-mile radius of the chemical weapons incinerator at Anniston Anny Depot. This is an extraordinary number of people who will be at risk from the emissions from an incineration facility.

In addition to the threat of agent releases and emissions, Incineration Program Managers are now trying to have the permit modified to allow them to bum 30 gelled M-55 rockets per hour. They are suppose to drain the rockets and send the liquid to one incinerator, the explosives to another incinerator, and the metal parts to a third incinerator. However, when the rockets don't drain properly, they want to chop up the rocket and throw all the parts into one incinerator--all at once--and they want to do this at the rate of 30 an hour!! This has never been done!! It is experimental, yet they want to try this untested method in the middle of a highly populated are. They are trying to force the incinerator to do something it was not designed to do.

In 1991, the National Research Council said that mixing waste streams like this is inefficient and unsafe!! The reason the Incineration Program Managers want to try to bum 30 gelled M-55 rockets an hour is to try and speed up their time schedule; yet it completely disregards safety!

The Anniston Chemical Disposal Facility is positioned to take advantage of the opportunity to eliminate the threat of nerve and mustard agent to the community in a quicker manner. The current facility can be modified to use neutralization as a means to eliminate the risk to the community. As recommended by the proposal unveiled by the Chemical Weapons Working Group today, our community would be safer, years sooner, rather than waiting on an incinerator.