Birmingham News
August 9, 2003

All systems go for incineration

08/09/03
MARY ORNDORFF
News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON - The Army's chemical weapons incinerator in Anniston is scheduled to fire up and destroy its first sarin-filled rocket about 9 a.m. today.
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A last-minute legal effort to derail the process failed Friday morning when a federal judge decided multiple agencies and courts have already reviewed the issue and that nearby residents are not in imminent danger. Within hours of that ruling, the first M-55 rockets packed with deadly nerve gas were moved from their ground-covered storage bunkers and placed inside the heavily guarded incinerator facility.

The Pentagon announced it would start slowly, draining, chopping up and burning one rocket and publicly reporting the progress soon after. Over the next seven years, 2,254 tons of obsolete weapons and nerve agents stored at the Anniston Army Depot are destined for destruction.

Officials tried to reassure nearby residents who for years have fought to get the money and gear to protect themselves in case of an accident. It is the first facility of its type to operate in such close proximity to a city.

"Public safety remains our principal interest," said Les Brownlee, acting secretary of the Army. "The Army has demonstrated since 1990 that it can safely destroy these chemical munitions, having already destroyed over 8,000 tons of chemical agent and over 1.3 million munitions without harming human health or the environment."

Opponents of the incinerator said they did not plan a protest before today's burn, although they will hold an event the following Saturday.

"We're still kind of in shock," said Rufus Kinney of Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration.

The judge announced his decision immediately after a brief court hearing in Washington, bringing an abrupt end to years of legal and political maneuvers by incinerator opponents.

Led by Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, a group of environmental and public health advocates had asked for a restraining order to prevent the incinerator from operating until further evidence about potential risk to the community could be presented.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson was not persuaded. He said talk about potential harm to the environment or people's health was "purely speculative at this time" and that incinerator opponents failed to show such danger was clear, present or certain. Jackson not only refused to issue the restraining order, he ruled against a more permanent injunction, clearing the way for opponents to appeal.

Richard Condit, the lawyer for the environmental groups, said they had not decided whether to appeal. Even if they did, there is no legal roadblock to the incinerator's operating before the case could be heard, he said.

He had argued to Jackson that safety precautions for nearby residents were incomplete, that there were holes in the system to monitor for other toxins that might escape the stacks during the burning, and that the Army did not properly consider any technology other than high-temperature furnaces to destroy the stockpile.

"The Army itself has changed positions with respect to the availability of nonincinerator capabilities," Condit said. In recent years, four other stockpile sites have been approved for newer methods such as neutralizing the agents in nontoxic solutions.

But government lawyers argued that the technology didn't become available until after the incinerator was built and it is unproven for the types of agents stored at Anniston. Barry Weiner, an environmental lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, also told Jackson that similar legal complaints against the Army involving its incinerator in Tooele, Utah, were reviewed extensively in court and upheld on appeal.

The Utah case, as well as the record of permits issued by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and decisions by Alabama judges, led Jackson to deny the restraining order.

"It's a sad day for those in Anniston, and for this nation, when our own government is unwilling to prevent U.S. citizens from exposure to toxic chemicals when alternatives are readily available," said Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group and lead plaintiff.

News staff writer Katherine Bouma contributed to this report.