Birmingham News
August 18, 2003

Army: Incinerator concerns baseless; Emerging research suggests otherwise

08/18/03
DAVE PARKS
News staff writer

The military has done the calculations, double-checked the designs and come to a critical conclusion about burning a massive stockpile of old chemical weapons at the Anniston Army Depot.

The public is safe.

"There are no health issues," Army spokesman Mike Abrams said last week, a few days after the incinerator started its shakedown operation. "We're nearly perfect."

Not everybody is convinced of the Army's infallibility. Even conservative public health authorities say there is some risk, and opponents of the incinerator point out the military's history of accidents, confusion and miscalculation when it comes to chemical weapons.

Moreover, the Army appears to be ignoring some of its own research about nerve agents like the ones being burned at the arsenal. New studies are raising the possibility that even tiny traces of nerve gas may cause big health problems for some people.

Abrams said it is pointless to consider new research, since the government is committed to the incinerator, which has begun its shakedown operation.

"That's a theory," he said. "That's someone else's argument."

The real problem is getting the public to understand the safety of the operation, he said. There have been minor leaks of nerve agent at the three other incinerators the Army has developed, but those design flaws have been fixed at Anniston by adding more filters, Abrams said.

Even if nerve agent escaped up the incinerator's 80-foot stack, it would break down in the environment before reaching the nearest populated area, about five miles away, he said.

In fact, Abrams said, the military has calculated that it would take 185 M-55 rockets filled with sarin nerve gas exploding at the top of the stack to pose a danger to the public outside the depot.

Although unlikely, that's a fairly alarming scenario involving enough nerve gas to theoretically kill 88 million people.

But Abrams said that given the rate of degradation and other factors, it would take that much sarin to create a health hazard off arsenal property.

"We have to look at the absurd," he said.

It goes to show that any public claims of health problems from the incinerator should not be taken seriously, he said. If there is an outpouring of health complaints from the community, Abrams said it will be handled as a public relations issue.

"I don't know they'll ever be able to prove that," he said. "That will be a PR challenge for us."

Dr. Sanford S. Leffingwell, a physician who spent a decade at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention double-checking the medical logic in the military's plans to burn chemical weapons, said there are some risks with the incinerator. But they aren't as great as the ones created by continued storage of the chemical weapons, he said.

Leffingwell, who is now with HLM Consultants in Atlanta, said the incineration project is everybody's best bet, and the Army has done a good job minimizing risks.

"Why not just go ahead and get it over with," he said. "They have taken this very seriously."

Still, Leffingwell's calculations about exploding 185 sarin-filled rockets over the depot differed significantly from the military's. At 7 miles out, about 1 percent of the population would die, he said. The kill zone would extend out to 9 miles.

And, he conceded, there is a possibility of unforeseen health consequences for the public from years of burning 4,322,180 pounds of nerve and mustard gas contained in 661,421 rockets, mines and artillery rounds left over from the Cold War and stored at the arsenal.

"That's always a concern," Leffingwell said. "It could happen."

It's certainly a concern for Craig Williams, executive director of Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Kentucky-based coalition of groups opposing incineration at eight sites around the country.

Williams believes chemical agents should be neutralized with warm water or other low-tech solutions that don't create hazards in the air. The Army has agreed to do that at four other locations but doesn't believe it's cost-effective in Anniston because the incinerator is complete.

So far, there have been 18 documented live agent releases at the Army's three incinerators outside Anniston, and many more leaks are suspected, Williams said.

"They can't even contain it," Williams said.

Growing research:

Meanwhile, there's a growing body of research raising concerns about the effects of very low levels of nerve agent. The research is the result of a dispute between the military and ailing veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War who were exposed to toxins blown into the air when coalition forces bombed and blasted stockpiles of Iraqi chemical weapons.

At issue is the possibility that veterans suffered chemical injuries from repeated exposure to levels of nerve agents so small that they didn't produce noticeable symptoms on the battlefield.

There have been several civilian studies and anecdotes supporting the theory, but recently, a study supported by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command produced dramatic results.

Rogene Henderson, a noted toxicologist at Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico, showed that exposing rats to very low levels of sarin could cause brain damage and memory loss.

Other research is confirming that some people are genetically susceptible to organophosphates, a family of chemicals that includes many common pesticides and nerve agents.

In February, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that farm workers with a certain genetic makeup were more likely to suffer pesticide poisoning. The genes of these farm workers couldn't produce enough of an enzyme necessary to protect their nervous systems against damage from low levels of organophosphates.

It's early in the research process, but some scientists believe that 10 percent to 15 percent of all people could be particularly susceptible to an insidious form for organophosphate poisoning that produces permanent nerve damage.

The findings have vindicated activists who have fought for years to connect mysterious illnesses in Gulf War veterans with their military service.

"It's stunning information," said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an umbrella organization for veterans.

Robinson said members of his organization plan to participate in protests at the Anniston incinerator. Robinson said veterans fought the Pentagon's public relations machine for 12 years to get government help. In the process, the military miscalculated risks, withheld information and misled veterans.

And, he said, fallout from the Anniston incinerator could produce a new wave of health problems and another bitter dispute.

"It seems to me that not a lot of thought went into this," Robinson said. "We do have emerging science ... and it should be considered."