Defense Environment Alert
February 11, 2003

POLITICAL PRESSURE CONTINUES OVER SAFETY ISSUES AT ALABAMA SITE

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is reiterating concerns over safety issues at the chemical weapons stockpile and disposal site in Anniston, AL, vowing to withhold support for the start-up of a chemical weapons incineration there until four key issues are addressed. His protests come just as an Army operational readiness review declared the Army's chemical weapons incineration facility is ready to begin operations.

Shelby wrote to Army Secretary Thomas E. White Jan. 29, reiterating concerns he's raised previously about the Army and Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) failure to come through with funding in a timely way for some of the emergency preparedness needs in the community should a chemical agent leak occur at the depot. His concerns are also over the Army's inaction or refusal to meet other emergency preparedness needs. The incineration of the depot's 2,254 tons of chemical weapons will take place within a heavily populated area. Local and state officials, as well as Shelby, have long scrutinized inadequacies in the federal government's emergency preparedness program at the depot.

The letter attempts to state clearly Shelby's views on the remaining outstanding safety issues at the facility and "spell out what the Army must do in order to obtain my support for going forward with the destruction process" in Anniston, Shelby says. He wants the issues resolved as soon as possible, promising to aid the Army in getting the resources, if necessary. The letter is available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2 for details.

"In sum, as soon as each of these four items is resolved I will be fully prepared to endorse and support the startup of the incinerator and the initiation of the destruction process," Shelby writes. "Until then, however, I remain opposed to any chemical weapons being burned in the incinerator's furnaces."

The four issues he wants addressed are overpressurizing schools in the vicinity of the incinerator, addressing protection of nearby special needs populations, getting clarity on siren activations, and putting accurate toxicity standards in place.

Shelby takes issue with the slow pace the Army has taken in funding the overpressurization of schools in the area and in establishing protections for special needs residents near the incinerator should a chemical agent emergency occur. Local emergency entities rely on Army funding, sent through FEMA, to pay for emergency preparedness actions such as these.

On the activation of sirens, Shelby says he objects to the Army's position that it shouldn't have to assume the responsibility for turning on sirens that notify those communities very close to the depot of a chemical emergency. The Army says it is only obligated to contact the local emergency management agency within five minutes of such an emergency. But Shelby asserts that having the local agency sound the alarms adds too much time to an emergency scenario and could expose local residents to a toxic plume before the public sirens go off and citizens can act to protect themselves.

And Shelby says the Army has been too slow in adopting new, updated toxicity threshold levels used to protect nearby residents, relying instead on levels developed in 1972 for healthy male soldiers in the battlefield. I cannot support the startup of the incinerator until the Army produces and implements empirically-valid, updated [Acute Exposure Guideline Levels]," Shelby says.

An Army spokesman says public safety is the Army's top concern as it moves forward with chemical demilitarization, and the Army plans to address the issues in the letter as quickly as possible. The spokesman says the chemical demilitarization program is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to accelerate overpressurization of the schools.

A review by various Army organizations outside the Anniston depot recently concluded that the workforce was trained and ready and the facility was prepared to begin operations, a depot spokesman says. But the depot is still awaiting final approval from state regulators on its agent trial burn plans, and the go-ahead from Army headquarters, he says.