Chemical weapons group advises public

The Arkansas Citizens' Advisory Commission on chemical weapons storage, disposal and emergency preparedness has been taking its show on the road and Tueday night, the commission members came to Stuttgart for their regular bi-monthly meeting and public forum.

The commission's primary mission is to provide citizens, particularly those who live within range of the Pine Bluff Arsenal, updated information on how the weapons disposal is proceeding and what safety programs are in place. At Tuesday's meeting, a panel of speakers told commission members that the destruction of a range of chemical weapons at Pine Bluff Arsenal is proceeding on schedule and has achieved several milestones.

Clara Moraga, assistant site project manager for compliance, gave a number of statistics from a March 4 report. "The most important thing we needed to get rid of is the rockets," Moraga said, and the rockets are being disposed of. The nerve-agent filled GB rocket inventory has been reduced by 82 percent, a figure Moraga called "fantastic."

Once the GB rockets are disposed of, the VX rockets will go next. But the most impressive figure from the report, Moraga said, is that, in the last two years, the risk to the community from ongoing storage has been reduced by 60 percent.

Commission member Stuart Sof-fer asked if the rockets that have been destroyed were the "leakers." Moraga said the most of the leaking rockets have been "demilitarized."

Guy Campbell of the Plant Manager in Pine Bluff for Washington Group International, the contractor handling the destruction reported that the target date for completing destruction in 2012 is on schedule. All thereof the furnaces are running. "We're on the last round and we can't wait to get it over with," he said.

Campbell did report in response to questions from the members that personnel is a concern. "We have to recruit all the time," he said and as the work winds down toward completion, "we have to maintain our pool of personnel."

Sandi Hensley and Thomas Howko reported on CSEPP activities statewide. Hensley said her office has been holding volunteer workshops around the state and just held one in Arkansas County last week.

Howko talked about the most recent exercise, which used the scenario of a small commuter plane crashing into one of the storage igloos, although he emphasized that in real life, a plane that size would not do much damage. To create additional realism, exercise planners hung a large computer-generated banner of a crashed plane at the site.

Exercise participants were told at first that it would be a transportation exercise, and then the plane crash was introduced.

Arkansas County Judge Glenn "Sonny" Cox called the exercise "well thought out." With the introduction of the plane crash, participants also had to consider whether terrorists were involved. Cox called it one of the "best exercises in the last 15 years."

Commission chair Betsy Francis also called on Cox and Arkansas County OEM coordinator Shanda Harwell to talk about CSEPP awareness in the county. Cox said although most people don't know what CSEPP (Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program) stands for, "they understand that it has to do with Pine Bluff Arsenal." Harwell said there is a lot of involvement in the County from volunteers, fire departments and other emergency responders.

The Citizens Advisory Commission holds public meeting every other month. The next one will be held in Pine Bluff May 15.