for immediate release: Thursday,
September 8, 2005
CITIZEN LETTER TO BASE CLOSURE
COMMISSION:
NO FUTURE USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS INCINERATORS
Members of the Chemical Weapons Working Group yesterday expressed their
views to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission on the Commission's
most recent recommendations for use or closure of bases where chemical weapons
are now being destroyed: future use of chemical weapons incinerators
is unacceptable.
On August 25th, the BRAC Commission voted to keep open the Deseret Chemical
Depot in Utah, to study whether or not the base - and the chemical weapons
incinerator housed there -- could be used to destroy other military weapons.
Local and federal elected officials from Utah support the measure, saying
that extending the mission of the incinerator would make good economic and
environmental sense.
However Jason Groenewold, with HEAL Utah in Salt Lake City said, "There
is nothing 'environmentally-friendly' about incineration, and any short-lived
economic gain to Utah would be wiped out by the environmental and health
threats posed by this technology. We in Utah have already sacrificed
enough for our government's military experiments and weapons production."
A letter to the BRAC Commission from the CWWG noted that the U.S. Army's
promised to dismantle the incinerators after the chemical weapons are destroyed,
but that the government is now stepping away from that promise. The
groups urge the Commission to consider investments in safe, non-incineration
technologies for destruction of old military wastes rather than using dangerous
incinerators.
Craig Williams, Director of the CWWG, said the groups oppose incineration
as much now as they did when the Army first proposed the chemical weapons
incinerator plan. "Now that the incinerators are operating it might
seem appealing to elected officials and developers to keep them open, after
chemical demilitarization has been completed," Williams said. "But
the long-term effects of incinerator emissions on public health can be devastating.
It is bad enough that the Army turned down the opportunity to use safer technologies
at Utah, Alabama, Oregon and Arkansas, but it is crazy to think about using
the incinerators for other wastes, too."
Hermiston, Oregon resident Karyn Jones, whose group GASP is a watchdog
on the Oregon chemical weapons incinerator, agreed. "Even though Umatilla
was on the BRAC list, and even though our elected officials support the
base's closure, I want to make sure that incinerator is never used for burning
other wastes," she said. "Congress and the Army promised to dismantle
the incinerators after the chemical weapons were destroyed, and they need
to keep that promise in each of our communities."
The letter to the BRAC Commission was sent on Global Day of Action against
Waste and Incineration, convened by an international environmental and public
health alliance called the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
(GAIA). Studies have shown that waste incinerators are cancer
factories, generating hundreds of pollutant releases such as dioxins and
heavy metals that cause a variety of health problems, including cancer,
reproductive and developmental disorders, and immune system dysfunction.
In fact, governments have agreed under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent
Organic Pollutants (POPs) to work for the continuing minimization and ultimate
elimination of dioxins and other POP-byproducts of incineration, so as to
protect public health and the environment.
Rufus Kinney, of Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration in Alabama
said, "There are hundreds and hundreds of people living near the Anniston
incinerator who didn't want the incinerator in the first place. But
I doubt that even among people who support the incinerator, few if any would
want it to be used to destroy wastes trucked in from other places." Kinney
said he has heard rumors that local elected officials want to use the incinerators
for wastes in addition to chemical weapons, but hopes that residents in the
Anniston area will be spared that burden.
Evelyn Yates, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas compared the success of safer,
non-incineration technologies with the dangers of incineration. "At
the Pine Bluff Arsenal we have an incinerator to burn stockpiled chemical
weapons, but we also have non-incineration technologies working to destroy
other military weapons and wastes. The military clearly has the capability
to do better than incineration, and the government as a whole needs to support
these safer methods."
# # #
A copy of the CWWG letter to the BRAC Commission is available on
the CWWG's website at <http://www.cwwg.org>.
For background information on the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
and a list of the hundreds of events taking place all over the world for
the Global Day of Action, visit the GAIA website at <http://www.no-burn.org>.
