The news from Alabama keeps reminding us how right Kentucky was to resist Army plans to burn chemical weapons in Madison County.

It also reminds us that Kentucky officials and activists can't declare victory yet.

After 18 years, the Army relented a year ago and settled on a safer disposal technology at the Blue Grass Army Deport near Richmond. The long overdue decision initiated a decade-long, $2 billion project to eliminate more than 1 million pounds of mustard, sarin and VX gas through neutralization. The project is still in its early stages.

The prospect of all that remains to be decided and done -- and all that could go wrong -- should keep the Chemical Weapons Working Group running for years.

The Berea-based group's latest accomplishment is a provision that U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning got included in a defense authorization conference report.

The "sense of the Congress provision" urges the Army to deploy better chemical agent monitors at disposal sites in eight states to ensure "maximum protection" to the public, chemical demilitarization personnel and environment.

Members of Congress from six other states, as well as Kentucky's Sen. Mitch McConnell and Gov.-elect Ernie Fletcher, pushed the provision.

Bunning praised Chemical Weapons Working Group director Craig Williams for helping make the case for better monitoring technology.

The infrared system that Congress wants would provide instant notice of a chemical agent leak. It now could take up to eight hours to confirm that nerve gas had reached a disposal site's perimeter, according to the National Research Council.

But guess what?

According to the Birmingham (Ala.) News, the Army says it won't upgrade the monitoring systems, despite what Congress said. The provision does not carry the force of law, only the force of science and common sense.

The Army began chemical weapons test burns in Anniston, Ala., in August. The many people who live near the incinerator can't be sure what pollutants are falling on them or how soon, or even if, they'd be notified of a nerve gas release.

Last week, a rocket-fuel fire temporarily shut down the Anniston incinerator. The week before that, workers were evacuated from a lab because of a suspected sarin leak that turned out to be a false alarm.

False alarms have been common at the Army's other chemical weapons incinerator in Utah. The frequency of false alarms is one reason for the slow response when the real thing occurred in Utah, Williams says.

That's another reason the Army is wrong to refuse to upgrade chemical agent monitoring around Blue Grass and other obsolete arsenals. And another reminder that Kentucky had better keep up its guard.