Chemical Weapons Working Group
P.O. Box 467, Berea, Kentucky 40403
Phone: (859) 986-7565 Fax: (859) 986-2695
e-mail: craig@cwwg.org
web: www.cwwg.org
for more information contact:
Craig Williams 859-986-7565
David Christian 256-237-0338
Rufus Kinney 256-435-4743
for immediate release: Thursday, February
16, 2004
CITIZENS GROUPS CALL FOR HALT OF OPERATIONS AND AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE
ARMY’S ALABAMA CHEMICAL WEAPONS INCINERATOR: CITE WORKER EXPOSURES
AND REPEATED SHUTDOWNS
In a letter sent today to the Acting
Under Secretary of Defense (AT&L), who has ultimate authority over the
nation’s chemical weapons destruction program, more than a dozen organizations
called for the suspension of operations and an investigation into the problems
that are plaguing the Anniston Alabama incinerator. Calling the burner’s
performance “a recipe for disaster,” the citizens’ letter points to technical
and design problems, unplanned shutdowns and “near misses” which indicate
serious safety issues at the facility. The letter also criticizes the
Army’s reluctance to be forthright about the problems.
Among the issues the citizen groups
want investigated are:
- the February 4th incident in which workers
were exposed to the nerve agent sarin;
- the repeated agent alarms inside the pla
- the technical malfunctions that have caused
numerous unscheduled shutdowns; and
- the incomplete and misleading information disseminated
to the community.
David Christian, a member of Serving
Alabama’s Future Environment, is concerned that the Army is covering up events
that could harm the community and his family. "Over four months ago, the citizens
of this community formally requested that specific information be forthcoming
from the incinerator. Our request went unheeded. Instead the Army clamped
down even tighter on the release of information concerning the plant’s operations.
Unless the Army is forced to admit the details of events like shutdowns or
worker exposures, we get piecemeal and misleading information, if we get
any information at all. Why do they feel like the community most affected
can’t be trusted with the truth?"
The February 4th worker exposure incident
is a case in point. In press releases concerning the incident, the
Army failed to report that two workers had been contaminated with sarin and
stated erroneously that the incident was limited to one building and was
not linked to the Army’s controversial processing of gelled rockets. However,
a week later, after determined probing by local media and confronted by information
from anonymous sources, the Army finally admitted that the workers had been
exposed to nerve agent, that alarms had sounded in the medical clinic in
addition to the disposal building and that the workers were indeed performing
activities associated with the experimental gelled rockets destruction process
when the contamination occurred.
Craig Williams, director of the Chemical
Weapons Working Group said, “This pattern of deliberate non-information and
misinformation is the same tactic the Army used at incinerators in the Pacific
and Utah, only in Alabama it is even more callous. In Anniston, Alabama, there
are more than 75,000 residents in the immediate impact zone who are either
being cut off from information or fed fabricated reports filled with spin
and half truths. This is not acceptable when dealing with these extremely
lethal chemical agents that have the potential for severely impacting the
health and safety of the community and workers. A thorough investigation
of last week’s incident, the hundreds of agent alarms that have sounded at
the plant and the numerous technical malfunctions in a supposedly ‘mature’
incinerator design needs to be undertaken immediately.”
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A copy of the Wynne letter is available upon request or at <www.cwwg.org>
