Rachel's Democracy & Health News #903

April 19, 2007

OP-ED: U.S. ARMY CAUGHT STEALING FROM INDIANA/U.S. CITIZENS

[Rachel's introduction: After a 3-year battle, citizen activists in New Jersey stopped the U.S. Army from sending VX nerve gas detox byproducts to the Garden State. But now, by stealth, the Army is sending this toxic waste to a mostly-black community in Texas. Here we see an environmental injustice unfolding in plain sight. Hilton Kelly and other activists in Texas are fighting back -- but they need support.]

By Craig Williams, Director, Chemical Weapons Working Group

Early in the morning of April 16th -- 4:15 a.m. to be exact -- the U.S. Army's Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), the entity in charge of destroying the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons, was caught red- handed stealing from the citizens of Indiana and the rest of the country.

In an operation reminiscent of the old Soviet Union, CMA secretly, under cover of darkness, began the shipment of by-products of neutralized VX chemical warfare agent -- the most deadly chemical known to science -- out of Indiana and headed for Texas.

Now, on it's face, this deceitful action might be considered insidious but hardly a theft. However it was a theft, and of the worst kind. What CMA stole was something irreplaceable, a precious resource found in extremely limited quantities these days -- trust.

After years of failed attempts to force communities in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey to agree to the shipment of the waste through or to their states, CMA reverted to secrecy, lies and possibly illegal acts to get the first truckloads of the VX by- products on the road through eight states to an incinerator in Port Arthur Texas, a poor and predominantly African-American town already overburdened with toxic pollution.

Hundreds of local Indiana citizens petitioned the Army not to dump this waste on some unsuspecting community, like Port Arthur: they attended public meetings year after year; they wrote letters and called their elected officials; and local governments even passed resolutions opposing the transport of the material over their roads, wherever it may be going. But the Army, while pretending to be interested in the public's involvement and position, secretly signed a contract, completely dismissing the citizens' wishes, much like the KGB of old ignored the pleas of their citizens.

Additionally, with this latest action, the Army has also blatantly disregarded the wishes of the U.S. Congress, which explicitly instructed CMA to ensure that any community identified as a potential reception site for the waste be informed of the proposal and be given an opportunity to support the plans. One of CMA's spokespersons even admitted, that since informing the public of earlier shipment proposals had resulted in the plans being rejected, this time as "a lesson learned" they resorted to acting covertly.

CMA's secrecy is not a new approach, such disregard for the will of the people has been a tactic of tyrannical governments for centuries. But we have always wanted to believe that it wouldn't happen here within a military program supposedly designed to keep the public informed while destroying the deadly weapons in the most protective way possible for all communities.

In a very direct way then, CMA officials have betrayed us, they have stolen our trust and our faith in the promises they made to us over and again. As one of our colleagues, who sat on the side of an Indiana highway and watched the trucks pass her in the dark of the night, said, "There is much more than 16,000 gallons of waste disappearing down the road. Much more."

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Craig Williams is director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Kentucky and winner of the 2006 Goldman Environmental Prize.