(The following is excerpted from the April 1998 issue of "Common Sense", the newsletter of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, published by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation.)
The Kentucky Citizens Advisory Commission held a meeting on March 12 to inform the public on the progress of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment (ACWA), the program which identified and set evaluation criteria for alternative technologies to incineration of chemical weapons. Present at the meeting were over 100 local residents; community, regulatory and military participants in the ACWA process; members of the National Research Council ACWA committee; and ACWA facilitators from the Keystone Center.
Ten years ago, citizens were only dreaming of this kind of meeting. Rather than having another shouting match between representatives of the Army's Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program, the National Research Council Stockpile Committee, and citizens opposed to incineration, the NRC ACWA committee, whose job it is to help analyze the technologies, instead took constructive input from residents on the technology evaluation criteria. Input from citizens ranged from prioritizing safety over cost and schedule considerations, to plant monitoring capabilities and the contractors' performance record. In addition to making oral comments, meeting attendees were asked to write down and submit comments for the NRC's consideration.
The commitment of concerned and informed citizens is what brought alternative technologies to the table, and gave citizens a seat at the table. This commitment must continue until, at the end of another decade, the stockpile has been completely destroyed.
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