Craig Williams- Champion for safe disposal of chemical weapons
by Vicki Wolf, November 2007
Craig Williams- Champion for safe disposal of chemical weapons
by Vicki Wolf, November 2007
Craig Williams has been fighting to stop incineration and for safe disposal of chemical weapons since 1985. One of the latest battles has been the U.S. Army's shipments of VX nerve gas waste from Indiana, across eight states, to Port Arthur, Texas. Williams is president director and co-founder of Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), an international coalition of citizens groups working for safe and acceptable methods of chemical weapons disposal. He has received many honors for community service and his work to protect the environment and public health by his own community, the state of Kentucky, the U.S. Congress and the international Goldman Environmental Prize in 2006.
He was introduced to the chemical weapons issue when the Department of Defense decided to build an incinerator at the Kentucky Blue Grass Army Depot, eight miles from William's home in Berea, Kentucky. "The Army came to town and announced that they wanted to incinerate weapons of mass destruction in the middle of the region, and asked if we have any questions," Williams recalls. "That was in 1984. I raised my hand and I still have my hand up. Many questions still have not been answered," he adds.
Public health and environmental protection are community issues that came up for Williams and his wife when the Army presented their proposal. They were dismayed by the Army's military approach to a community situation. "You don't come waltzing in and tell people what you are going to do," Williams says. "You identify the problem and decide who is going to help solve the problem, so that when you go to execute the objective you have cooperation from those affected. My wife told me 'somebody had to do something about this’ . . . and here I am today.”
Before the Army came to town with the chemical weapons challenge, Williams had a cabinetry business with 14 employees. He was torn between his business and the growing realization that someone needed to organize the community in a formal continuing effort to get the decision to burn chemical weapons in their community turned around. In 1988, the Army announced they their final decision were going to burn the chemical weapons. Williams formed a national coalition with citizens living near the other eight proposed weapons incinerators, sold his business and decided to work on the safe disposal of chemical weapons full time.
Williams quickly learned that a solution-based approach was needed to stop incineration of chemical weapons. "When I was going to Capital Hill, one of the representatives said, 'I agree with your position, but you're not going to change this by standing on the street corner. You must come up with something to replace their solution proposal,'" Williams recalls. He and allies raised money to hire an international group of scientists to look at alternative methods for disposal. He took evidence of better solutions to Kentucky Senators Wendell Ford and Mitch McConnell who supported Williams' efforts and championed the cause in Congress. After more than 10 years of research and petitioning, Williams and allies claimed a victory in 1996 when the Army announced it would use a safer water-based disposal process to dispose of the weapons at the Maryland and Indiana stockpile sites, as well as suspend funds for incinerators in Colorado and Kentucky.
But the fight wasn't over. The Pentagon tried to hold up more than $300 million in federal funds for safe weapons disposal and redirect the funds to incinerators that had cost overruns. But Williams, with covert help from inside the Pentagon, revealed those plans to the public and Congress. The Pentagon released the funds, which enabled Colorado and Kentucky sites to continue with their efforts to safely destroy more than 880,000 chemical weapons.
The battle with the U.S. Army over incineration of chemical weapons disposal continues today. Waste from the most lethal weapon on the planet, VX nerve gas, is being shipped to Port Arthur, Texas for incineration after months of work by Williams and Chemical Weapons Working Group and Texas environmental organizations to try to get it stopped. "The fundamental reason Port Arthur is getting this material is that Texas has been on the receiving end of tens of millions of tons from sites in other parts of the country," notes Williams. "To move from this dumping at one level to the more lethal form of waste is not a big leap for the Army and regulating bodies, based on history," he explains.
After being turned away by Ohio and New Jersey, secretly signed contracts between Veolia waste management facility and the U. S. Army, and lack of public notice are the other reasons the U.S. Army is getting away with shipping and incinerating a lethal chemical weapon in Port Arthur, according to Williams. "What the Army learned was that if we tell people about this, they aren't going to want it. We will send it where we've been sending all the other stuff - to a poor black community where they don't have any clout and we can get away with it," Williams says.
Williams says his earliest influence taught him about courage, justice and service. He says his father instilled the meaning of veracity for the truth and to stand up for what is right. "He taught me that even if it's against the odds, you still have to stand up," Williams remembers.
Williams, a Vietnam veteran, says another influence on how he sees the world today was his military experience. "I recognized it can be the case that you believe that something is as it is presented and find that it is quite different when you peel back the surface. (As a soldier) I went from and a position of blind engagement to utter opposition and disdain for engagement in conflict," Williams says.
The CWWG has been successful using a multifaceted, strategic-centered approach, according to Williams. His role in the organization is strategic thinking and policy implementation. He says there are three other people in the national office who are wonderful at grass roots organizing and policy writing. They work with a coalition of volunteers across the country.
"You've got to have a certain degree of passion to be successful in this work or you can't go up against these large organizations," Williams notes. "You can get burned out, frustrated and depressed, but if you are driven by passion justice, you may not get all the things you want, but you can make progress and have some satisfaction in small victories," says Williams.
Williams says he will continue to work on the safe disposal of chemical weapons until all of the chemical weapons in the U.S. and Russia are gone. He also is interested in water and air quality issues and in educating people about how environmental degradation is a human rights issues.
Williams and his wife, Teri, have a home on eight acres with gardens and fruit trees in Berea, Kentucky. Williams likes to garden. He also enjoys music and theater and he likes to golf. They have a son and daughter and a grandson who will be three years old in February. Williams also has two children and three grandchildren from a previous marriage.