Fire at Anniston Depot bursts radioactive-gas vessels

Friday, March 9, 2007
KATHERINE BOUMA
News Staff Writer

With the destruction of all the rockets, the risk posed by the leaky Cold War weapons stored at the depot has dropped by 96 percent, according to Army estimates.

"I think the facility has performed remarkably well, and the people who are doing the job are doing remarkably well in a very high-hazard type of environment," said Tim Garrett, the Army's project manager at the incinerator. "The crews have performed tremendously well."

He said the incinerator complex has been operating for 10 million work hours without any employees injured. That tally includes days when the incinerator is closed to make changes for different types of weapons.

The Army is destroying its stockpile of nerve agent weapons at eight spots around the nation, under international treaties requiring their destruction.

Westinghouse Anniston, the Army's contractor, began burning rockets loaded with sarin in 2003. Thursday night, Army officials said workers finished destroying the only other rockets stored in Anniston, those filled with the deadly nerve agent VX.

They destroyed 35,636 rockets, as well as 26 VX rocket warheads. During the previous sarin campaign, they burned 142,428 munitions, including 42,762 rockets.

Now, the incinerator will be closed for adjustments before destroying the rest of the stockpile, which includes mustard and VX munitions.

The Anniston incinerator had a few troubles destroying the weapons, including two fires in the rooms designed to contain explosions and another on an electrical panel. But the weapons have been destroyed with far fewer problems or controversies than other, identical incinerator complexes had. Two have had to be closed for investigations of frequent accidental fires while a third accidentally released sarin into the air.

Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, said he agrees that Anniston's record has been extremely safe. He said his only concern now is that the Army does not release reports of alarms, upsets, pollution or other errors as it does at other incinerators.

"We've been asking for information out of that site for years, and we don't get anything," Williams said.

He said his coalition has asked for records of alarms, exposure to agent, near-misses and other incidents.

Garrett said the Army has exceeded the requirements of law with frequent public meetings, information handouts to news outlets and other information.

Although he would like more information, Williams said the most important point is that the Army has successfully reduced the risk to the surrounding population without deaths or catastrophic events.

E-mail: kbouma@bhamnews.com