for more information contact:
Craig Williams: 859-986-7565

for immediate release: Tuesday, November 3, 2002

A report that citizens living near chemical weapons incinerator sites hoped would provide an objective evaluation of chemical agent incidents at Army incinerators instead is a "review of carefully selected information on the Army's incineration program which in no way represents the real-life risks of the technology to workers and the public," said Chemical Weapons Working Group Director Craig Williams.

Williams is referring to the latest National Research Council report released today entitled, "Evaluation of Chemical Events at Army Chemical Agent Disposal Facilities." The report was requested by Congressman Bob Riley (R-AL), recently elected Governor of Alabama, where the third of the Army's chemical weapons incinerators is scheduled to begin operations early next year. Army plans to operate incinerators in Umatilla, Oregon and Pine Bluff, Arkansas are moving ahead as well, despite the fact that safer, non-incineration technologies will be used for disposal of chemical weapons in Indiana, Maryland, Colorado and Kentucky. 

With conclusions vastly different from recent reports from the General Accounting Office, numerous whistleblowers at the Army's incinerator facilities, and the Army and contractor reports themselves, even said the NRC report barely skims the surface of the myriad problems faced by the incineration technology, and is anything but an accurate portrayal of the incinerator problems.  

For example, a recent report issued by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) reflects significant problems with the Army's management, comprehensive training, and the Programmatic Lessons Learned Program. The Army's own report on the 15 July, 2002 worker exposure incident in Utah admits to a serious lack of an adequate safety culture. In addition, major chemical agent incidents -- including the major emissions event of March 30, 1998, which triggered the request from Congressman Riley -- were not covered in the report at all. 

Some of the other shortcomings of the Report include:

• The Committee excluded the ten specific incidents requested by Alabama's Calhoun County Commission to be reviewed. The request identifying these events was made in a letter to the NRC dated 21 June, 2001.
  
• The Committee disregarded thousands of pages of official documents on chemical agent incidents, submitted by the CWWG, as "not germane," and limited their review to only those incidents also identified by the Army.
  
• The Committed relied on inaccurate incinerator operational schedules provided by the Army, rather than more recent revisions by the Pentagon which extends by 2-3 years incineration operations at the upcoming sites .
  
• The report assumes that storage risk can be reduced only by incineration of chemical weapons, ignoring the schedule slippages plaguing this technology; any storage mitigation approaches and does not consider any risk elimination by non-incineration technologies.
  
• Ignores their own 1994 finding that agent monitor must be improved before beginning stateside operations.
  

The CWWG also noted that many of Committee members and report reviewers are connected with the chemical demilitarization program or other government projects, which, says the CWWG, raising serious conflict of interest questions.

"For anyone to accept this report as either accurate or objective would be a mistake," said Williams. "Unfortunately, it is the citizens living near the incinerators who will bear the consequences of its failures."

CWWG Home Page

Contact us: Chemical Weapons Working Group Kentucky Environmental Foundation P.O. Box 467 Berea, KY 40403 phone: 859-986-7565 fax: 859-986-2695 For comments about this WWW page contact Lois Kleffman.