CNN
July 26, 2003

Army Incinerates Old Chemical Weapons In Small Town

Aired July 26, 2003 - 15:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Today on NEXT@CNN, the Army is about to start incinerating old chemical weapons in a small southern town, and some residents are worried. We'll look at the controversy.
Also, what could a cyber bad guy do if he knew all your computer passwords? Something called spyware makes that a real possibility. We'll tell you how to protect yourself.

And winning the Tour de France takes more than athletic ability and determination. It takes technology. We'll get an inside look.

First, destroying weapons of mass destruction in Anniston, Alabama. The Army is finalizing plans to fire up a new chemical weapons incinerator there this summer. But as David Mattingly explains, after almost a decade, a heated debate continues between the Army and Anniston residents about the best way to dispose of the stockpile.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALICIA GOODWIN, Anniston RESIDENT: Please don't let them start this.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Alicia Goodwin of Anniston, Alabama worries about the unthinkable, that she and thousands of others could one day fall victim to some of the deadliest chemical and nerve agent weapons ever created.

MICHAEL ABRAMS, ARMY INCINERATOR SPOKESMAN: Nerve agent VX, nerve agent GB and mustard agent filled weapons. At Anniston, we have all three types of agents. We also have artillery shells, land mines, rockets.

MATTINGLY: They are dangerous Cold War relics from a time before international treaties banned chemical weapons and ordered their destruction.

Manufactured in the '40s, '50s and '60s, the nation's chemical weapons stockpile, all 64 million pounds of it, has since been in storage at the Anniston Army Depo and eight other locations. Some of it is now so old that the Army reports some of the liquid chemicals have turned to a custard-like gel. In Anniston, 850 of the shells are said to be leaking. TIM GARRETT, INCINERATOR PROJECT MANAGER: And that's an indication of the condition of the stockpile. They're not getting better with age. They were not designed to sit there necessarily for 40 years.

MATTINGLY: Too old to remain in storage, too dangerous to move. So the Army's solution at five locations is to burn them. And to do that, the Army is building huge incinerators, like this one in Anniston.

A $770 million, seven-year long project to destroy the Anniston weapons, then dismantle the plant piece by piece. But while there is generally agreement that the chemical weapons have to go, the plan to incinerate them has divided the city.

GOODWIN: I believe that I'm well informed enough to know that my children aren't going to be safe. I feel that way. I feel like when they start this thing up and my child is outside playing, and that alarm goes off or if he's somewhere else, you know, I want to be with my child if something like this is going to happen.

MATTINGLY: State and Army officials say of all the stockpile locations with incinerators under construction, Anniston is the most densely populated, putting 70,000 people at possible risk if there is an accident.

RUFUS KINNEY, LOCAL ACTIVIST: Even if there isn't an accident, we're going to be continuously exposed to poisonous emissions day and night for the next 10 years.

MATTINGLY: The Army points to similar incinerators in Utah and on the Johnston atoll in the Pacific as a decade-long record of success. While destroying those stockpiles, the Army says there have been three incidents of nerve agents escaping the plant. But, they say, the releases were so small they did not pose a health risk.

Still, additional safety steps have been taken in Anniston in case of similar accidents with the installation of massive charcoal filters.

(on camera): Protesters and some public officials argue they should have been offered a choice, as other communities have, where incinerators were rejected in favor of a process called chemical neutralization. It involves technology that wasn't available at the time the plans for Anniston were first drawn up.

(voice-over): Neutralization is an operation at one location in Maryland, and in development at three other stockpile communities.

ROBERT DOWNING, CALHOUN COUNTY COMMISSIONER: And from what I can see, every community that's been given a choice as to how they dispose of their chemical weapons has chosen to use an alternate technology, one that's not inherently emissive in nature like incineration. So it's unfortunate that our community was never given a choice.

MATTINGLY: In the meantime, warning sirens have been erected and tested in Anniston. Evacuation routes are mapped out. But plans to pressurize local schools, making them safe havens from a gas cloud, may not be complete by the time the school year begins.

There are 35,000 Anniston residents in what is called the pink zone, the area designated on maps as the most at risk in the event of a chemical release. People living here are eligible for special gas masks and room air filters to create a safe room in their house. But tens of thousands of people have yet to pick up the free equipment.

SHERRI SUMNERS, PRES., CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: The fact that fewer than half of the people who are eligible to pick up protective devices have done so tells us that we're comfortable where we are. You know, some of us have been familiar with shelter in place for over 40 years, so I think that we are ready to move forward, and certainly the time is now.

MATTINGLY: The clock is ticking at the Anniston incinerator. Test burns have been conducted and a state permit has been approved.

This special media tour was arranged to provide an inside look at the facility, where safety and security is clearly a huge part of the job.

ABRAMS: Everyone who works or visits the Anniston chemical agent disposal facility has to be issued an Army protective mask.

MATTINGLY: For us to view the incinerator, we had to first go through 5.5 hours of briefings, security checks and extensive fittings for a gas mask.

The tour itself took several more hours, starting with the high- tech control center, where engineers oversee the mostly automated operations. Then, through massive rooms, where some of the weapons are cut into pieces and drained of their deadly contents.

ABRAMS: Literally, what we are doing is chopping and dropping the rockets.

MATTINGLY: The nerve agents and the pieces of weapons are then destroyed, incinerated at 2,700 degrees.

ABRAMS: The facility does not cause any danger to the public. In fact, we are decreasing risk by destroying weapons in this facility. We are doing a service, if you will. We are not presenting a safety issue to the community.

MATTINGLY: It is an assertion that some in Anniston refuse to accept, even as the plant readies for its dangerous work, creating a less than peaceful atmosphere for the destruction of some of the Army's deadliest weapons of war.

David Mattingly, CNN, Anniston, Alabama.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL: More about the Anniston controversy when we come back. We'll talk with two people who care deeply about it and who are on opposite sides of the fence.

And later in the show, we'll have a live demonstration of some of the technology that makes for a Tour de France winner.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Officials in Waco, Texas, will being holding a news conference at 3:30 Eastern time. They'll be talking about the discovery today of a body in the area where they were searching for clues to the disappearance of basketball player Patrick Dennehy. We, of course, will be bringing that to you live as soon as it starts.

Now, back to the controversy in Anniston, Alabama. Is incineration the best way to get rid of those leftover deteriorating chemical weapons, and would your answer be different if the incinerator were next door to your house? Here to discuss the issues are Mike Parker, director of the Chemical Weapons Agency with the U.S. Army, and Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a nonprofit citizens organization.

Gentlemen, thank you both for joining us.

I'd like to begin with you first, Mr. Parker, and say that Anniston residents have been fired up about this for years. Why do you think that Anniston was not given the choice, whereas other communities were, and whether or not the incinerator would be based in their community?

MICHAEL PARKER, DIRECTOR, CHEMICAL MATERIALS AGENCY: At the time that a technology choice was made for Anniston, there was really only one viable technology available. That was an incineration-based technology. Communities later, the Aberdeen community in Maryland, Newport in Indiana, Bluegrass in Kentucky and Pueblo in Colorado, had input through the form of public involvement, and advised the decision authorities within the Department of Defense on a technology choice. But even in that case, it was still a departmental choice rather than being represented as a community choice.

KOPPEL: Mr. Williams, what is your main concern about this incinerator?

CRAIG WILLIAMS, CHEMICAL WEAPONS WORKING GROUP: Well, there are many of them. I think the first major concern is the track record of the two incinerators that have been operational. They've shown a consistent pattern of not being able to control these very lethal materials reliably. There have been 18 documented live-agent releases out of these facilities, not the three that the Army is quoted in your story as having said occurred, and then there the issue of the chronic toxic emissions that are associated with the operations of these facilities. Even if this deadly nerve agent does not escape, you still have a host of other contaminants that are coming out of the smokestack and being directly deposited into this nearby community that's already severely contaminated from previous industrial operations that took place in this same community.

And if there's a safer way to do this that doesn't release these kinds of toxics and doesn't pose the risk to release chemical warfare agent into the community, then we think it's our government's responsibility to deploy the safest technology available, and that's not incineration.

KOPPEL: Mr. Parker, of course, I'd like you to respond to that. But I think what has folks in Anniston so upset and so nervous about this incinerator is that the Army is not waiting necessarily until these pressurized rooms, which are supposed to be located in schools and churches and other public buildings, they're not waiting for those pressurized rooms to be finished. Why is that?

PARKER: Well, the pressurization of the schools and some other public buildings is under way. I think the radius ultimately agreed to was out 12 miles from the plant site. The identified structures within eight miles have been completed, and the effort's under way to finish out the rest by the October time frame.

The approach that we intend to take at the point of startup is one of a very controlled, low-rate ramp-up of production. We've consulted heavily with the state and with the local officials on this interim processing approach, and we're in general agreement that the measures that have been put in place by the state and the local emergency response personnel is suitable to allow us to go through this controlled, low-rate initial operations.

KOPPEL: Mr. Williams, do you agree?

WILLIAMS: Well, no, I don't, actually. I think that the reality is that the extraordinary measures that are having to be taken, and as you pointed out, have not been completed yet. The fact they're not being completed yet should put this thing on hold until they are. But the extraordinary length that that community is going to because of the kind of technology that they have is a reflection of the risk posed by this technology.

They're neutralizing mustard agent in Aberdeen, they're going to be neutralizing VX agent in Newport, Indiana, soon. They don't have all the schools out 12 miles over pressurized, they haven't issued gas masks. They haven't gone to these extraordinary lengths to try and make the community feel like they're protected.

And I think that that's a direct reflection of the known risk of having an open-ended technology. I mean, you've got a perfect delivery system for a release of nerve gas into that community in the form of a 60-foot smokestack. And when you eliminate that smokestack and you go with low-pressure, low-temperature, controllable technology such as neutralization that are going to be deployed at these other four sites, you mitigate the risks significantly and get a lot closer to the congressional mandate, which is maximum protection.

KOPPEL: Mr. Parker, I'd like to give you the last word, sir, and just explain to our viewers why it is these chemicals cannot just be stockpiled, why they have to be incinerated.

PARKER: Well, the ultimate objective is disposal. The technology issue is really being miscast, and the risk to the public is the continuum of storage and disposal. To isolate down on the technology of disposal loses the focus that the risk to the public is associated with continued storage of the weapons.

The stockpiles at Edgewood and Newport that Mr. Williams identified are a different configuration than the stockpile in Anniston. The stockpile in Anniston presents a much more significant risk and continued storage risk. These weapons are deteriorating. The risk to the community is associated with that stockpile operation rather than the plant operation.

KOPPEL: OK.

PARKER: It's time within that context to move on with a disposal operation, balancing the storage risk to the technology risk associated with incineration. It's clearly time to move the -- and balance those risks, and the risk is such that it is time to dispose of the weapons, and the incineration technology meets all the safety thresholds.

KOPPEL: Understood. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave it there. Mike Parker, director of the Chemical Weapons Agency with the U.S. Army. Thank you, sir. And Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group. I thank both of you for joining us today.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

PARKER: Thank you, Andrea.