Springfield News Sun
July 1, 2003

Army plans burning of weapons

By CHARLES SEABROOK / Cox News Service

ANNISTON, Ala. - The government has provided 80-year-old Elzora Saunders with a protective hood, an indoor air filter and a kit to keep outside air from getting into her home.

Still, she's uneasy. "I hope I'll never need them," she said. "But if I do, I hope I'll remember what I'm supposed to do with them."

The items are supposed to protect her if something goes wrong with the Army's plan to destroy deadly nerve and blister weapons at the nearby Anniston Army Depot.

Nearly 2,300 tons of the chemicals -- some of the most lethal substances ever concocted by man -- are stored at Anniston. After more than two years of delays, the Army has told Congress that it plans to start burning the weapons this month in a specially built $900 million incinerator at the depot.

Pending lawsuits could postpone the incineration process once more. But the Army's firmness on a July start has people in the Anniston area saying that it might be a go this time.

Calhoun County emergency management officials are operating on that assumption.

Preparing for an accident at the plant, they have devised intricate evacuation routes and are distributing to local residents thousands of protective hoods, air filters and shelter kits -- purchased with $7 million from the Army.

The hoods function like gas masks but are larger and simpler to use. The filters are intended to purify air in a sealed-off room. The shelter kits contain scissors and duct tape to seal the rooms.

Emergency management officials have divided the hilly region surrounding the depot into zones depending on their vulnerability to an accidental release.

About 22,500 men, women and children living within 6 miles of the incinerator are getting hoods. Residents within 9 miles of the depot, the average distance a chemical vapor could travel in one hour, are receiving filters and kits. Households beyond that ring, up to about 30 miles from the depot, are receiving only the kits.

So far, about half the people eligible for the items had picked them up at a distribution center at the former Fort McClellan Army base in Anniston. Each person must sit through a session on how to use the hoods.

"They're coming through in a steady flow," training director John Reutter said. "Our busiest time, though, is on Sunday when people come by after church."

Schools within a 12-mile radius of the depot are slated to be overpressurized to prevent noxious vapors from flowing in, but that work has not been completed.

Residents, schools, businesses and others will be warned by wailing sirens and emergency radio and TV broadcasts if there is a release from the incinerator.

Army officials said that is not likely to happen. Redundant safety measures make it improbable that any noxious vapor will ever escape the plant, they said.

"There is nothing that can happen at the incinerator that would necessitate anyone using a hood or mask," said Mike Abrams, spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. "Our biggest concern at the incinerator is dwarfed by things that could happen to the agents in storage."

The Army worries that terrorists could strike the heavily fortified storage site, but it is more concerned about the potential for disastrous leaks. "It's a gamble keeping these weapons in storage," Abrams said.

The liquid sarin, VX and mustard agents -- contained in rockets, projectiles, land mines, mortars and other munitions -- have been stored in earth-and-concrete igloos at the depot for more than 40 years.

The military brewed more than 32,000 tons of nerve and blister agents during the 1940s through the 1960s. The stockpile was maintained only as a deterrent, military officials say, because the 1925 Geneva Protocol banned the use of chemical weapons in war. The protocol did not prohibit production of the weapons.

But under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, all nations must destroy their chemical arsenals by 2007. Russia and the United States are the only known chemical weapons superpowers, although U.S. forces are searching for such weapons in Iraq.

The military has destroyed more than one-fourth of the U.S. arsenal, but it acknowledges that it won't meet the deadline for getting rid of the whole stockpile. The Anniston incineration alone will take at least seven years and cost about $2 billion.

The Army says numerous test runs at the incinerator were successful and showed that it can be operated safely with small risk to the community. "To ensure safety, we plan to start very slowly," said Timothy Garrett, the Army's project manager.

First, the Army plans to begin destroying rockets filled with nerve agents. It will process the chemicals at night and on weekends, and will provide 24 hours notice of burns.

The seven mayors in Calhoun County have signed a resolution urging the Army to go ahead with the incineration. The resolution was directed at other government officials and activist groups that have delayed startup of the incinerator.

Still, there's a chance that incineration could be delayed for several more weeks or even months. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said he will agree to firing up the incinerator as long as a few final safety measures -- including improvements in the notification system and extra help for special-needs residents -- are met.

Without Riley's approval, the incinerator is unlikely to get a necessary state permit to operate.

His predecessor, Gov. Don Siegelman, sued last year to block the opening of the incinerator. The lawsuit was withdrawn after the Army provided the funds to buy the hoods and other household protective equipment.

Still pending are two federal lawsuits by activist groups. One contends the military should scrap incineration and neutralize the weapons chemically. The other claims minitories will be unfairly endangered by the incinerator because it is located in an area that is disproportionately black.

Judges considering the lawsuits have not indicated when they will rule.

Charles Seabrook writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.