(Reprinted with permission of the Exchange Monitor. For more information on the Exchange Monitor click here.)

CHEM-BIO WEAPONS & DEFENSE MONITOR
Volume 3 No. 6
April 30, 2001

HEARING ON ANNISTON CHEM-DEMIL
TURNS INTO A DONNYBROOK

Sen. Richard Shelby's (R-Ala.) April 25 appropriations subcommittee hearing, which was intended to focus on the U.S. Army's efforts to destroy the Anniston depot chemical weapons stockpile, turned into a donnybrook not only for the Anniston program but for the entire U.S. Army effort, with the powerful Appropriations Chair Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) asking how the program could be stopped after hearing how the Army was going to supply in-place shelter kits of tape and plastic to Anniston residents to deal with a possible agent release. If that was not enough for the Army chem-demil officials to sit up and take notice, Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, an ardent opponent of incineration, made public an internal Army Operations Schedule Task Force Final Report completed last year that ended up projecting a baseline that would not achieve destruction of the weapons stockpile until May 2014--seven years past the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) deadline-in direct contradiction to the Army's continued assertion that the baseline program deadline at Anniston was 2006-2007. Just what this deadline is, or what it can be realistically, is a critical factor in the ongoing battle to push for using a technology other than incineration for destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile. However, with the incineration facility at Anniston 98 percent complete, the possibility of deploying another alternative technology at the site has been viewed as next to impossible, not only by the Army officials but by most of the local citizenry. This hearing, however, did raise some expectations that an alternative approach is still possible.

How Can We Stop This?

The most dramatic and immediately ominous to the U.S. Army moment of the hearing occurred when Anniston resident Rufus Kinney presented a box to the committee members that contained duct tape and plastic sheeting-the Army's in-place shelter kit-which he reported was intended to be distributed to Anniston resident in case there was a leak of agent at the Depot during the incineration process. Kinney asserted to the committee that the Army had committed to evacuations if an accident were to occur and was not reneging on that promise maintaining that an in-place shelter program was necessary because evacuation of the increased population in and around the Depot would result in increased deaths.

An Army spokesman, contacted by the CBW&D Monitor following the hearing, readily admitted that indeed in-place shelter was the preferred option over evacuation because of the large population in the Anniston area. But he said the Anny would only recommend a course of action, it would be the local government's decision on what to do. Kinney's testimony coupled with Craig Williams' revelation of a longer than expected baseline program prompted an angry House Appropriations Chair Stevens to remark: "I'm scared as hell about what I've heard this morning. I think we should have a meeting with the Secretary of Defense and shut the place [Anniston] down until they know what they are doing."

Army Says Report Identified Needed Improvements

The report Williams submitted to the committee and provided to the CBW&D Monitor does indeed project a substantially longer time table for destruction of the U.S. weapons stockpile using baseline incineration technology than even publicly revealed. It details destruction paths and schedules that are not in line with currently available Army documents. But the Army explains that the report was undertaken to identify where improvements could be made to adhere to the 2007 deadline and to evaluate ongoing plans as to how they would ensure meeting the deadline. Recommendations were then made to improve the program in order to meet the deadline when it was determined that current plans would not be in compliance. Williams, however, argues to the contrary and supported by Alabama groups charges that the U.S. Army is covering up. Notably (and noticed by committee members) at the session, all the Army officials, including Acting Secretary of the Army Joseph Westphal, PMCD Manager Jim Bacon and ACWA Program Manger Mike Parker, left the hearing room following their testimony and did not hear first hand either Kinney's statement or Williams'.