Birmingham News
August 16, 2003

King III to protest weapons disposal

08/16/03
DARRYAL RAY
News staff writer

Martin Luther King III is expected to join opponents of the Army's chemical weapons incinerator in a protest march and rally in Anniston today.

King, son of the slain civil rights leader and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will be joined by SCLC's vice president, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, and others at 10 a.m. in the march from the Anniston City Meeting Center to Zinn Park.

Civil rights leaders and environmentalists say the incineration technology used to dispose of aging rockets and projectiles containing nerve and mustard agents stored in earthen bunkers at Anniston Army Depot is outdated and poses a greater risk to black and poor people.

The incineration began last Saturday after years of planning and delay, but already the facility has been shut down four times. The Army says the incineration of the 2,254 tons of material will take about seven years; opponents say it will take at least 11 years and generate thousands of tons of hazardous waste.

Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, who will be among the speakers today, said he expects "more than 10, less than 10,000" people for the event.

The group's message is that Anniston was never given an opportunity to consider a newer - and they say safer, cleaner and cheaper - form of disposal called neutralization.

West Anniston, the closest population downwind of the facility, includes a high percentage of minorities and an extremely high percentage of people below the poverty line, Williams said.

He added that hazardous waste from the incinerator is to go to five sites, including two in Alabama - a landfill owned by Waste Management Inc. in Emelle and a landfill owned by Superior Cedar Hill in Ragland, less than 50 miles from the incinerator. Williams said those sites and the others are largely populated by minorities and those near the poverty level.

"Things seem to be moving right along technologically on every other front," said Williams, "but in this program it seems that what was state of the art in 1982 appears to be state of the art for the black and poor folks in 2003."