Opinion

Exposed employees

Sarin contamination should raise red flags in Anniston

02/13/04

Workers at Anniston's chemical weapons incinerator are being trained to follow new safety procedures after two employees were contaminated with the deadly nerve agent sarin last week.

The need for additional safety measures is obvious.

The two workers were contaminated despite their protective gear during a "hot entry" - i.e., work conducted in an area where sarin is present. Incinerator officials say the workers got sarin on their hands, and, rather than immediately decontaminating their gloves, they continued working and spread sarin all over their suits.

Even after the still-suited workers went through a decontamination shower - one of them three times - the air around their suits measured sarin at 165 to 185 times the level that would trigger alarms at the incinerator. In the process of being cut out of their suits, some of the sarin apparently touched the cotton coveralls the workers wore under their protective gear. Both workers registered slight contamination on their bodies, though blood tests did not register dangerous levels, the Army said.

Incinerator officials traced the incident to the stress of working in hot protective gear in a contaminated area of the incinerator - conditions that lend themselves to mistakes and oversights. That's an explanation, sure, but it's no excuse. If there's ever a time that mistakes can't be made, it's when workers are in close contact with sarin.

So additional safety training is in order.

Incinerator critics say the Army increased the likelihood of dangerous missteps by taking dangerous shortcuts.

The incinerator was designed to drain sarin from the weapons and burn it separately. But it is now taking a different approach in rockets in which the sarin has gelled or crystallized. In Anniston, one of the techniques being tried is to catch the sarin crystals in a net sock and send in workers to change the sock. That requires workers to go into contaminated areas more often, and that's what the workers were doing last week when they were exposed to sarin.

In addition, the Army is trying in Anniston to burn the crystallized or gelled rockets at a rate of 14 per hour - far faster than the 1.6-per-hour rate used at an older incinerator in Utah. "They're risking these workers' well-being to show everyone they can do it," said Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, which opposes incineration.

It's a point the Army shouldn't dismiss out of hand.

While it's always important that workers be trained and retrained to reduce the risks they face on the job, the Army must step back and look at the bigger picture. It's in everyone's interest to destroy these deadly chemicals as quickly as possible. But breaking speed records isn't worth endangering employees or those who live near the incinerator.

The Army needs to examine seriously its goals and methods, particularly those pertaining to the gelled rockets. If the Army won't, regulators should.