Birmingham Post-Herald
August 21, 2003

Protesters won't give up

By ERIN SULLIVAN
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

Other than chaining themselves to the chemical weapons, the activists said they did all they could.

Protests upon protests. Marches. Speeches. Signs. Pamphlets. Letters to politicians. Lawsuits.

They're fighting the Army. They've lost.

But they're not giving up.

"The war is not over," said Rufus Kinney, a member of Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration. "Although they won the big one when they got permission to start, we are going to prevail."

On Aug. 9, after more than a decade of debate, the government gave the green light to the Anniston Army Depot to begin burning its stockpile of aged chemical weapons. The 661,529 artillery shells, rockets and mines have been in Anniston since 1961. Nearly 10 percent of the current U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons is housed in Anniston.

Because 35,000 people live next to Anniston's incinerator, activists say the incineration method is too risky to be safe. Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, which has helped lead the protests, spoke Tuesday evening to a Sierra Club meeting at the Birmingham Zoo.

He told protesters not to quit.

"If I didn't think we could do it, I wouldn't be here today. We can do this," Williams said to the two dozen people in the audience.

Most activists admit they are frustrated, but none present at the Tuesday Sierra Club meeting gave up hope they could stop the incineration.

"The issue is not dead," said Keith Johns, a Sierra Club member who attended the meeting with wife Beth Johns and 7-year-old son. "Just because they've started incinerating does not mean they're using the right system."

The Army started planning its method of destroying the chemical weapons 20 years ago, he noted.

"I think they got so far down the road that they are entrenched in their original idea," Johns said. "But, hel-lo! Technology changes."

"It seems like the military runs roughshod over the citizens," said Joe Copeland, who drove 60 miles from Cullman County to attend the meeting.

Even the protesters agree the weapons should be destroyed. Their presence might be inviting to a terrorist. Lightning might strike the stockpile. And the nerve agents — sarin, VX and mustard gas — are leaking out of their shells, which is a risk, although the Army and anti-incineration activists differ on how risky it really is.

The problem is the method of destruction. The Army chose to incinerate the weapons housed in Anniston — which means they chop up the weapons and let the nerve agents drip into a storage tank. The metal is then burned in a 1,100-degree furnace. Once enough nerve agent is in the storage tank — 600 to 700 gallons — then it is incinerated.

The protesters want "neutralization," where the weapons are again chopped and drained. The nerve agent is then mixed with a neutralizing liquid. The metal is pressure-washed (with the liquid dripping into the neutralizing tank) until it is deemed free of the nerve agent.

So far, the depot has destroyed 111 M-55 rockets by incineration, Army Spokesman Mike Abrams said. The nerve agent — sarin — that was inside the rockets will be incinerated in about three weeks, he said.

Other than some "minor maintenance issues" such as a hydraulic line leak and a cooling system repair, Abrams said he is pleased with the progress.

"Things are going very well," Abrams said Tuesday afternoon. "We've had no failures. No problems."

Williams said his organization, along with other Anniston-based groups, will be continue their efforts to stop the incineration — whether that's waiting for a change in political leadership or pushing litigation.

Abrams stands by his assertion that neutralization is not safer than incineration. He said the leaking chemical weapons are more of a danger. If the depot was ordered to stop destroying the weapons and to switch to a neutralization method, it would take "15 to 20 years" before they would start destroying the weapons again, he said.

"It took more than 13 years to get to where we are today," Abrams said. "It seems to me, as a taxpayer and a citizen of Calhoun County, that it would be criminal to throw out the years of preparation, construction and training to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in something that is truly not safer."