Philadelphia Inquirer
August 18, 2003

Munitions, not fears, are going up in smoke:  Burning of chemical weapons is a worry in Alabama.

By Mario F. Cattabiani
Inquirer Staff Writer

ANNISTON, Ala. - Birds are not dropping from the skies. There are no chemical clouds hovering darkly. But Evelyn Ervin can't seem to shake those possibilities.

"It's scary. They say it's safe, but who really knows?" said Ervin, 78, as she sat on her home's porch swing, near the gates of the Anniston Army Depot. "Who knows what that stuff can do?"

That "stuff" includes sarin nerve agent, mustard gas, and other lethal chemicals packed into hundreds of thousands of rockets and artillery shells, part of the United States' Cold War arsenal.

After years of legal delays, the Army this month began the controversial process of incinerating the stockpiled munitions, which have been stored on this site in eastern Alabama for four decades. This will mark the first time in the nation's history that incineration alone has been used to destroy chemical weapons near a populated area, experts say.

On Saturday, Aug. 9, when it got under way, the process worked as planned. Over that weekend, the Army incinerated 10 M55s, 61/2-foot-long rockets made of fiberglass and aluminum and filled with sarin. But problems with the hydraulic and cooling systems forced the process to shut down on Monday and Tuesday. At no time were chemicals at risk of entering the atmosphere, said Mike Abrams, the depot's spokesman.

Burning has resumed. Still, the early problems have only handed more ammunition to foes of the process, who lost a last-ditch attempt in federal court to block the burning.

"It gives us even more cause for concern," said Craig Williams, executive director of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group. "They spent a billion dollars getting ready to go, and they operated for just 48 hours. It proves this technology is not what has been advertised."

Between 1961 and 1968, the Anniston site took in 661,529 weapons containing 2,253 tons of chemical agents. They were stored in concrete-reinforced, earth-covered bunkers in an 800-acre corner of the sprawling Army depot.

Army officials insist that the incineration process is the most advanced and well-tested method of disposing of such a stockpile.

"Virtually fail-safe" is how Abrams described it.

"There are 750 of us working out there," he said, "and none of us are suicidal."

In the process, holes are punched into each weapon to drain its chemical contents. The weapon is then chopped into eight pieces and fed into a 1,100-degree furnace, which burns off any last chemical traces. The drained chemicals go into a holding tank, and they will be burned separately in a large batch, likely in late fall.

The Army has used the process before, but in more remote locations - on Johnston Atoll, a small island in the Pacific Ocean, and in the desert near Tooele, Utah.

The Army is testing another incinerator near Pine Bluff, Ark., and is expected to begin burning chemical weapons there late next year.

Opponents, however, want the government to use another method in Anniston, a process known as neutralization. In that method, water and other chemicals are used to dilute and deactivate the toxic substances. It is being used at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

In the 1970s, the military used a dual process of burning and neutralizing chemicals at a site eight miles from Denver.

Supporters of incineration, including Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, believe that the greater danger in Anniston would be doing nothing, allowing the aging weapons to leak or, worse, fall into the hands of terrorists.

"The safest thing is to destroy them as quickly as possible and get them out of the community," said Riley, who represented the region for six years in Congress before becoming governor in January.

Charles Steele, who runs the depot's community outreach office in downtown Anniston - a large storefront full of handouts, models and reams of studies showing the process to be safe - equated the weapons to a pit of rattlesnakes in a backyard.

"You may know they can never get out," he said, "but wouldn't you feel better if they weren't there?"

Bertha Pearce would. She lives just down the road from the depot's front gates.

"I trust they know what they are doing," she said. "I just want those things gone."

Critics, however, say that it is only a matter of time before their worst fears are realized.

"There is always going to be human error, and I'm scared to death about that," said Rufus Kinney, who lives in nearby Jacksonville, Ala., and is the spokesman for Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration.

"The worst-case scenario? I fear they'll blow up West Anniston in the middle of the night."

Jeff Ridgeway lives less than a mile from the depot, making him one of the 35,000 people in the "Pink Zone," within the nine-mile radius where emergency management officials believe the danger to be the highest in case of an accident. He also works at the depot as a welder and has three school-age children.

"I think about it every morning I cross that gate," he said. "Are my kids going to be safe when I'm not close enough to get to them?"

About 65 people marched in Anniston on Saturday to protest the incinerator's start-up.

"No more burning, no more lies, better way - neutralize," the demonstrators chanted.

For now, the depot plans to take the process slowly, burning one weapon at a time. Abrams calls it a test drive designed to catch any glitches, such as the problems discovered with the hydraulic and cooling system last week.

By next year, the system should be able to destroy up to 40 weapons an hour, Abrams said. Eliminating all the weapons will take seven years.

As the burning began last week, local emergency management officials started handing out safety gear - protective hoods with attached air filters, plus plastic sheeting and tape to seal homes.

Like thousands of others in Anniston, which is 50 miles east of Birmingham, Ervin picked up the package just in case. But knowing it is in the next room provides little relief. Ervin wonders if the gear would work.

"But," she said, "you can't run away from the Lord when He says it's your time."