Birmingham News
July 18, 2003

Protests pledged if incinerator starts too soon

07/18/03
DARRYAL RAY
News staff writer

ANNISTON Opponents of a chemical weapons incinerator Thursday urged Gov. Bob Riley and President Bush to "stop the illegal burning before it starts" and promised there will be protests if it begins operation before the community is fully protected.
From Our Advertiser

"If they decide to go ahead and fire it up now, there'll be unrest in Anniston," the Rev. Henry Sterling of the state SCLC chapter declared in a press conference called by incinerator opponents. "There'll be no peace and no justice. Anniston will look like the Anniston of the '60s."

The press conference outside Seventeenth Street Missionary Baptist Church was in response to word Wednesday that Alabama Department of Environmental Management was nearing approval of the final permit the Army needs to begin destroying 2,254 tons of chemical nerve and mustard agents stockpiled at Anniston Army Depot.

Rufus Kinney of Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration called on Riley and Bush to invoke Public Law 99-145, which mandates "maximum protection of the workers, the public and the environment during the destruction" of those weapons.

Kinney said the community has not yet received maximum protection. He said 28 schools will not be prepared until at least October, there is no systematic effort to protect smaller day care centers and no plan in place for 3,900 handicapped residents, and that first responder equipment and training will not be in place until 2004.

Elizabeth Crowe of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group said her group and an undetermined number of allied parties would soon seek a court order to halt the startup.

In addition to the legal action, Kinney promised "direct action" in the form of non-violent marches and rallies, saying one such march drew 350 people last September.

"What we intend to do this time is get a very large march, a very large rally that is larger than any we have done before," he said. "... We're going to do a lot better than 350 this time. I promise you that."

The Rev. N.Q. Reynolds, pastor of the Seventeenth Street church, said firing up the incinerator before the community is ready is a decision by "a bullheaded group of folks who have decided, `We are going to do what we want to do.'"