for more information:
Elizabeth Crowe: (859) 200-8207
Rev. Pamela Cheney: (216) 470-6037
for immediate release: Friday, July 18, 2003
From the Christian denomination that first coined the phrase "environmental racism," came a unanimous resolution calling on the U.S. Army to stop the incineration of chemical weapons and immediately replace incinerators with technologies that can destroy chemical weapons yet prevent the release of chemical agent into the environment. The United Church of Christ (UCC) passed the resolution at its General Synod, held this past week in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The resolution comes at a critical time for the communities in Calhoun County, Alabama, near a chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot which may begin burning lethal chemical weapons within the next few weeks. The U.S. Army has stockpiles of obsolete chemical weapons stored at eight sites in the continental U.S. Four sites (Utah, Alabama, Arkansas and Oregon) are facing the threat of incineration as a means of chemical weapons disposal, while another four (Indiana, Maryland, Colorado and Kentucky) have the benefit of safer, low-temperature disposal methods.
"The fact that some communities have been offered safe technologies while others seem stuck with incineration is a gross violation of the principles of Environmental Justice," said UCC Minister Pamela Canzater Cheney. "Furthermore, this incineration plan is counter to the Biblical admonition of doing justice towards all of God's creation."
In 1987 the UCC Commission for Racial Justice published a report 'Toxic Waste and Race,' which described the disproportionate impact of hazardous waste landfills and incinerators on the poor and people of color. Since that time, the national environmental justice movement has condemned incineration as a dangerous technology.
Rev. Cheney, whose family lives near the incinerator in Alabama said, "When I heard that my 92-year old grandmother was given a gas mask as protection from a chemical agent release, I knew that we had to act. To burn chemical weapons when there is a better alternative! That is simply shameful."
"The UCC's resolution indicates a growing, widespread outrage with the plan to burn these weapons of mass destruction, here in our own country ," said Elizabeth Crowe, organizer with the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a grassroots coalition of citizens living near U.S. chemical weapons sites. "We appreciate the UCC's efforts to work with us to promote justice in our communities, and feel certain that we will prevail."
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