for more information:
Craig Williams 859-302-1103
Keith Clark 334-409-0636
Brenda Lindell 256-236-1496
Rev. N.Q. Reynolds 256-236-1061

For immediate release Tuesday, November 19 2002

Twelve organizations were represented at the Federal Courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama, today as they announced a new lawsuit aimed at halting the burning of lethal chemical weapons in Anniston in favor of safer, faster disposal methods. The groups and their attorneys say the Army's chemical weapons incinerators are proven failures, and demand that the Army, its contractor and Alabama state regulators protect the health and safety of workers and the community by using non-incineration technologies.

"The Army's chemical weapons incinerator has turned Anniston into a human sacrifice zone," said Brenda Lindell of the plaintiff group Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration. "Incineration is unsafe, unjust and completely unnecessary given that safer methods exist that have been proven viable for our stockpile. We are here today to say, once again, that Anniston deserves maximum protection from chemical agents, as mandated by the federal government. We are demanding accountability from the Army, its contractors and the state agency that granted the permit for this dangerous incinerator."

The Army intends to begin live agent trial burns in its Anniston incinerator in the first months of 2003. If plaintiffs in this case have their way, the facility will instead be retrofitted with a low-temperature, neutralization technology that could eliminate the risk of the chemical weapons much more safely and efficiently than incineration.

To make its point in court, the groups' suit incorporates the following six counts:

• the new and significant information on the failures of the incineration technology as well as on the proven non-incineration technologies, garnered since the Army made a decision to burn the weapons, should mandate a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement;
  
• the incinerator emissions -- chemical agents as well as a host of other toxic compounds -- will cause imminent and substantial danger to the nearby population;
  
• the "emergency preparedness" program is not sufficient, nor is it compliant with state and federal regulations;
  
• the incinerator trial burns would cause imminent and substantial danger to the population, given that the burns would include experimental procedures such as the burning of gelled chemical agent and all rocket components in the same furnace at the same time;
  
• the Army's inadequate waste characterization -- i.e. the inability to state exactly what will be burned in the facility -- is a violation of state and federal regulations; and
  
• the incinerator will result in disproportionate impact on African-Americans in the Anniston community and therefore violates the Fifth Constitutional Amendment granting equal protection against disparate impacts.

Chemical Weapons Working Group Director Craig Williams said, "We need look no further than the Army's experience with incinerators in the Pacific and Utah to know that the idea of burning chemical weapons in this highly-populated, already highly-contaminated community is insane."

Williams noted that the Utah incinerator is still shutdown from a July 2002 incident when workers were exposed to nerve agent. An August 2002 release of VX nerve agent from the Pacific incinerator brought the total number of incinerator chemical agent releases, since the late 1980s, to 18.

Rev. N.Q. Reynolds, from the Calhoun County Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) said, "This community is reeling from severe contamination of PCBs, lead and other compounds. To expose this community to chemical warfare agents is an act of gross environmental injustice and must be stopped." State and national SCLC members including Martin Luther King III and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, joined hundreds more in a march and rally against the incinerator in Anniston last September. Marchers vowed to do "whatever it takes" to bring justice to Anniston.

The CWWG's Williams noted that the disproportionate impact of weapons incineration stretches far beyond the Anniston community. Hazardous wastes from the Anniston incinerator are slated for shipment to sites in East St. Louis, Illinois; Port Arthur, Texas; and Emelle, Alabama to be landfilled or burned. Those communities' populations are roughly 80-97% African-American, and predominantly low-income.

Plaintiff attorney Keith Clark said, "The list of plaintiffs for this lawsuit is one of the most diverse I can recall. When farmers, civil rights leaders, veterans, parents, conservationists and environmentalists are all standing together saying the same thing, its time for the state and federal governments to pay attention."

Copies of the complaint are available electronically upon request.

Plaintiffs: Alabama Environmental Council; Calhoun County Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Chemical Weapons Working Group; Citizens for Environmental Justice; Coosa River Basin Initiative; Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration; Friends of Terrapin Creek; Friends of Rural Alabama, Inc,; Serving Alabama's Future Environment; Sierra Club; Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation; and Wild Alabama.

Defendants: United States Department of the Army; United States Army Anniston Army Depot; United States Army Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization; United States Department of Defense; Washington Demilitarization Company (a subsidiary of the Washington Group International); Alabama Department of Environmental Management; James W. Warr, Director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.