Tooele Transcript Bulletin
August 20, 2003

Despite protest, Tooele's sister burner up and running

by Karen Lee Scott
Staff Writer

Tooele County is the home to the first chemical weapons incinerator on the continental United States. Its twin facility located in Anniston, Ala., recently began operations on Saturday Aug. 9.

Just as some concerned citizens protested the start-up of the Tooele plant, so did residents of the surrounding areas of the Anniston facility. However, even though both sites were taken to court, both sites are now in full operation.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, ruled against a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction both aimed at stopping the Anniston site from starting. With his ruling the Army was able to begin the destruction process of M-55 rockets containing nerve agents.

While the second was designed like the first, it does have some differences. One major difference is that the Anniston facility has a component the Tooele site does not have. The part is called a pollution abatement filter system.

Michael Abrams, Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility’s (ANCDF) public affairs officer, said the item is placed at the base of the stack to act as “one more piece to preclude agents from getting into the stack.”

Army officials say reasons why Tooele doesn’t have this item include cost and no real need for it.

Another difference between Tooele and Anniston is the surrounding areas of the site. Tooele‚s site is located several miles away from most residents, while the Anniston site has about 35,000 people within nine miles of the stack.

Some environmental groups have spoken out against the new site

“It is a sad day for this nation, when the U.S. government spares no expense to hunt out weapons of mass destruction overseas, yet fails to provide even adequate protection to Alabama citizens living in the shadow of this incinerator,” said Rufus Kinney of Families Against Nerve Gas Incineration.

Chuck Sprague with Deseret Chemical Depot public affairs said he believes that most of the people in Anniston are accepting of the incinerator, but that a few vocal minorities are stirring things up.

Abrams said people are confused and think they are endangered. He said he keeps telling people they are safe, but because so much safety gear has been handed out to local residents, some think they are in harm’s way.

Last Saturday morning, Kinney vowed that he and thousands of others in Anniston and the surrounding areas would continue the fight for the safe disposal of chemical weapons.
Because of the controversy over the new incinerator in Alabama those in opposition held a march and rally advocating safe weapons disposal Aug. 16 in downtown Anniston.

Approximately 65 people carrying signs in protest of the facility marched in the streets of Anniston. They were joined by about 40 others in a nearby park where a petition was circulated and signed by 60 people.

The document was addressed to the Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and it asked him to stop the burning processes until further safety measures could be put in place and more training could be given to first responders in the area.

Despite the march, Abrams said he firmly believed, based on all the reports, that the majority of people support the operations.

Unfortunately for the new site there were some minor complications after just a few days of operations, which flared up the opposition even more. But Abrams assured, “No one was endangered and the plant wasn’t shut down. It just caused some delays. It was not as big a deal as the local press made it out to be.”

For now the site plans to carry on with its destruction of its 2,254 tons of chemical stockpile weapons over the next nine years.