East Oregonian
November 25, 2002

Lawsuit filed over Alabama chemical weapons burner

By the ASSOCIATED PRESS

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - An Army plan to burn Cold War-era chemical weapons in an Alabama community next year unfairly endangers minorities, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by a dozen groups trying to block the incineration.

Some 75,000 people live within nine miles of the incinerator at Anniston, and 44 percent of them are black, while only about a quarter of Alabama's population is black, the opponents of incineration contend.

Dangerous chemical weapons incinerators in Arkansas, Oregon and Utah also are located in areas with large minority populations, the suit claims, while safer disposal methods will be used in areas of Colorado, Maryland, Indiana and Kentucky which have fewer minorities.

After incineration of the nerve agents in Anniston, some 67 million pounds of hazardous wastes would have to be removed to disposal sites, opponents said, and all of those are in areas that have large minority populations.

"That is discrimination in the most outrageous way," said Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group of Berea, Ky., a lead organization in the suit.

The Rev. Abraham Woods of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which is among the plaintiffs, said he was "appalled" by the incinerator plan.

"It is outdated, it is unsafe and it is unpredictable," said Woods, a veteran civil rights leader in Birmingham.

Incinerator spokesman Mike Abrams said the military had no choice but to destroy the munitions at Anniston Army Depot, where they have been stockpiled for decades.

Similar incinerators already have destroyed 25 percent of the nation's chemical weapons with only two minor injuries to workers, he said.

"We have never had an impact on the community," said Abrams.

Some of the other groups filing suit include the Anniston-based Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration; the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation Inc.; the Sierra Club; and the Alabama Environmental Council.

The suit named the Defense Department and other federal agencies involved in the incinerator, plus the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, which granted a permit for the facility.

The 27-page complaint contends the incinerator presents an illegal health threat and that new environmental studies are needed before work can proceed at the $1 billion facility.

The groups, which contend the Army should destroy the weapons by neutralizing them chemically, asked a court to block the project by finding the federal and state governments in violation of the law.

Abrams said chemical neutralization could not be used in Anniston because of the variety of chemical agents that were stored there and the amount of explosives involved.

The military plans to use the facility to destroy some 2,254 tons of deadly nerve agents stored in dirt-covered bunkers at the Anniston Army Depot, located about 50 miles east of Birmingham.

The facility was scheduled to open in October, but the date was pushed back until early next year after the state complained that test burns of surrogate materials were done using improper procedures.

Gov. Don Siegelman previously sued in federal court to block the opening of the incinerator, but the lawsuit was withdrawn after the federal government agreed to provide money for safety measures including gas mask-like hoods for area residents.

At least two lawsuits were filed to block the state from granting permits for the Anniston incinerator, but neither succeeded., according to CSEPP.