By JOHN YAUKEY
Gannett News Service

ANNISTON, Ala. -- Jokes about duct tape and plastic wrap as a defense against chemical attack don't go over well down here, especially in the "pink zone."

That's the official name for an area within a 9-mile radius of the Anniston Army Depot where the government recently started burning more than 2,200 tons of GB and VX, nerve agents meant to kill on contact, along with the blister agent known as mustard gas.

Anniston is one of eight locations nationwide where the U.S. military will be destroying its arsenal of chemical weapons in accordance with an international treaty.

It's an especially sensitive issue here because nowhere else are the weapons so close to residential areas, many of them poor.

"Once again it's the people at the bottom end of the economic totem pole who have to suffer the risks here," said Carlos Woodard, pastor of the Wings of Faith Cathedral. His home, the church and its 100-member congregation all lie within the pink zone. "It's ironic that we're at more of a risk from our own chemical weapons than we ever were from Saddam's. I pray they know what they're doing in there."

After years of legal wrangling, the Army recently began incinerating 661,529 chemical weapon units that have been stored on this site in eastern Alabama for 40 years.

The shells, many of them 7-foot rockets made of fiberglass and aluminum, are stored in concrete-reinforced, earth-covered bunkers covering about 800 acres. A significant gas leak from this guarded complex could kill dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the 35,000 Anniston residents living in the pink zone, depending on the winds and other environmental factors.

If there's one point the locals and the Army agree on, it's that the rockets are leaking and need to be destroyed as soon as possible.

"We find leakers almost on a daily basis," said Donovan Mager, a spokesman for Westinghouse, the company hired to destroy the weapons in a sprawling billion-dollar complex. "So we really need to get about the business of getting rid of this stuff."

Many of the pink zone residents contend that incineration isn't the safest way to do it. They would prefer chemical neutralization, which the Army is using successfully on the stockpile at an Edgewood, Md., facility.

The Army maintains the incineration being done at Anniston is safe, efficient and tested, having been used successfully on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and in the desert near Tooele, Utah.

Changing disposal methods in Anniston now would add years to the process, which already will extend well beyond the original 2007 target date for completion.

As a precaution, residents in the pink zone have been issued home protection kits that include plastic hoods equipped with gas masks in case of a leak.

As an added safety measure, schools in the pink zone are being pressurized so they would repel any leaking gas.

"How good can you feel about attending a school that has to be pressurized because of chemical weapons?" asked Brian Miller, a student at Anniston High School.

Mayor Hoyt Howell isn't happy about it either, but insists, "The risk is going down every day they burn."

Not everyone has that kind of faith in the process.

Jeanette Champion lives within the pink zone with relatives who cannot travel easily.

"If there was a leak, there's no way we could get everyone out of there in time," she said during a recent rally in favor of using chemical neutralization over incineration. "I don't think my fears are exaggerated. Look at the problems they're having with this thing already."

Two days after the burning began Aug. 9, problems with the hydraulic and cooling systems forced the process to shut down. Depot spokesman Mike Abrams stressed that there was never any risk of chemicals entering the atmosphere.

The burning has since resumed without any safety risks. But the early problems have only reinforced concerns among incineration opponents, now waging a last-ditch effort to block the burning through the federal courts.

"These problems prove that the technology being used here is not as effective or as safe as they claim it is," said Craig Williams, executive director of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, a citizen's' organization that opposes incineration. "They spent huge sums on this facility, and 48 hours after it fires up, there are shutdowns."

The Army is testing a similar incinerator near Pine Bluff, Ark., and is expected to begin burning almost 4,000 tons of GB, VX and mustard gas there next year.