ARSENAL RADIOS ON HOLD

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

Approximately 15,000 radios designed to alert residents of an emergency won't be distributed until after the Pine Bluff Arsenal begins incinerating chemical weapons Tuesday.

"It's my understanding that the company is going to begin programming them next week," Wally Hunt, coordinator of the Office of Emergency Management, said Thursday.

The radios will be delivered to homes, businesses and schools within a 9.5-mile radius of the Arsenal and are designed to provide early warnings in the event of a chemical or hazardous material accident, or even severe weather.

Each has to be programmed individually and Hunt said the vendor, Safer Systems of Washington, will begin that process, then distribute them in the immediate response area surrounding the Arsenal.

He said the radios were bought through an Arkansas Department of Emergency Management grant awarded to Grant County.

"There were some technical delays trying to get the software in place and build a database," Hunt said about the radios, which have been stored at the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management since January.

The total cost of the new radios was not available Thursday afternoon.

Hunt said that until the new radios are delivered, the old tone alert radios, which were distributed previously, will still work.

"The old system is still in place, and, in fact, we have distributed some of the old radios to new people who have come in to the community," he said. "We're also planning a campaign to inform people who might have just moved in of the availability of the radios."

The Arsenal stores 12 percent of the country's chemical weapons stockpile, the second largest in the nation, which contains 3,850 tons of chemical agent. The incineration will begin by processing sarin-filled rockets, followed by rockets containing VX nerve agents, VX land mines and finally ton containers of mustard agent.

The Army estimates that it will take about five years to eliminate the entire stockpile.

In addition to the tone alert radios, Hunt said a network of 58 sirens in Jefferson and Grant counties will be used to alert residents in the event of an emergency.