Michael Abrams, public affairs officer, Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal facility, discusses the incineration process durign a recent meeting of the Centre Lions Club.

The choice is simple, says one agent. Dispose of them now or let them sit, with the risk of disaster continuing to escalate. Michael Abrams, public affairs officer, Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, discussed the ongoing incineration of chemical weapons stored at the Anniston Army Depot during a recent meeting of the Centre Lions Club held at Real Pit Barbeque in Centre. Construction on the disposal facility, which now sits on approximately 19 acres, Abrams, said, began in 1997 and was completed in 2001. “And this is where we are making all of Northeast Alabama safer,” said Abrams. “On Aug. 9, 2003, we started destroying chemical weapons. We have a fairly simple mission. We have a lot of chemical weapons and our objective is to destroy all of these chemical weapons, make this community, make this part of God’s creation safer for all of us, for our children and our grandchildren. We have about 700 people working at this facility. None of us are suicidal. We have a mission to destroy chemical weapons and we want to do it in such a way that we don’t hurt ourselves, our community and the environment.” To date, some 103 tons of chemical materials have been destroyed at the site, a total of 20,800 rockets, Abrams said. “These rockets are six feet, eight inches tall, about the size of Michael Jordan,” said Abrams. “Cong. Browder said our stockpile, even though not the biggest, was the most dangerous because it was loaded with chemicals in rockets, artillery shells, mortars and land mines. This is an expensive project. Destroying chemical weapons. On Leap Day Feb. 1996, the United States Army awarded a contract to Westinghouse to build our facility, test it, operate it and close it. When all of our chemical weapons are gone, in about seven years. We are going to sanitize this facility, take out all the mechanics that made it a chemical weapons incinerator and then close the doors and go away. We are not bringing any biological weapons or nuclear weapons, or additional chemical weapons, our plan is to close the facility.” The chemical weapons at Anniston Army Depot have been stored at the site since 1961, Abrams said, the last ones arriving in 1968. “At that time, the president said ‘Time Out!”’ said Abrams. ‘“We are not going to move chemical weapons any more.’ We have chemical weapons at eight different places around the United States. The Army has decided that for security purposes, for logistical purposes, political purposes, we are going to destroy the chemical weapons where they sit. We are not bringing any chemical weapons from Syria, Libya, Iraq, Kentucky, Colorado, anywhere. We destroy the ones we have, then we close the facility. Since 1961, we never have lost a chemical weapon. Since 1961, we haven’t hurt ourselves. Since 1961, we have found a lot of leaking chemical weapons.” In the past, agents have tried burying chemical weapons and dumping them at sea which law no longer allows. Decades of research show that disposal by incineration is the best alternative, Abrams said. “We don’t want Anniston, Northeast Alabama to become synonymous with Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, places where there have been major disasters,” said Abrams. “We want to get rid of the weapons before anything bad happens. Incineration works! We’ve been incinerating chemical weapons since 1990. We have 14 years of experience incinerating chemical weapons. So far, we have incinerated some 16,880,000 pounds of chemical materials. We’ve done a good job. We’ve destroyed a lot of chemical materials. In Anniston, our commitment is to make sure that we always do it safely. We know that the community is depending on us, our family is depending on us. We depend on each other at the worksite.” And Northeast Alabama is not alone in this project, Abrams said. “There are eight sites around the United States where we store chemical materials,” said Abrams. “The ninth site, on a little island in the Pacific Ocean, has destroyed 2,031 tons of chemical material already. Now that facility has been torn down. We are operating an incinerator in Utah, and Arkansas, Oregon. We are looking forward to started incineration there, hopefully later on this year, maybe in December. We store chemical material in Colorado and in Kentucky. We are still designing incinerators. We are neutralizing chemical materials in Maryland and we want to neutralize materials in Indiana.” Again, once the weapons are gone, North Alabama residents should be able to rest easy, Abrams said. “If we do nothing, we are, I think, justifiably nervous that something could happen,” said Abrams. “There’s a risk, ever so slightly, that something could escalate as long as we keep weapons in storage. When all of the weapons are gone, we don’t have to worry about them any longer. We still have to worry about the drunk drivers on Highway 9, we still have to worry about whether children or grandchildren will go to college or some forth. But some day, within seven years we hope, we won’t have to worry about chemical weapons any longer.”