August 18, 2003
By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
ANNISTON, Ala.
Photo: Anniston Army Depot
globalsecurity.org
These are the neighborhoods closest to the Anniston Army Depot where the Army began burning obsolete but deadly chemical weapons this month. Toxins such as sarin and VX nerve gas — the very weapons of mass destruction that have been so much in the news lately — will be destroyed over the next seven years.
If an accident occurred that sent a toxic cloud into the air, the pink zone would be Ground Zero. In an eerie preview of what life might be like in a future chemical attack by terrorists, people who live within 6 miles of the Army's incinerator have been issued protective plastic hoods, portable air filters, duct tape and plastic and told to prepare a "safe room" in their homes.
Anniston is the first American city where citizens have been issued gas masks by the government. For months, people have been urged to learn how to use them. And they've been told that if a chemical leak occurs, don't flee; instead, "shelter in place" in their homes, schools or businesses.
Safe rooms are being created in schools, jails and hospitals in the pink zone. The government is spending $55 million to retrofit buildings where the public gathers with refrigerator-sized air-filtration systems, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A total of $140 million is being spent on Anniston's preparedness.
But there's little comfort in the pink zone.
Zones
Emergency management authorities have set up the following zones around the incinerator at Anniston Army Depot, where the Army is burning chemical weapons:
Pink Zone: Closest to the depot. Extends about 6 miles. Residents offered protective hoods, portable air filter units and shelter-in-place kits: Duct tape, plastic sheeting, a towel, a videotape and scissors. About 35,000 people live here.
Immediate response zone: Extends 6-9 miles. About 40,000 residents offered air filter units and shelter-in-place kits.
Protective action zone: From 9 miles to county's border. About 41,00 residents offered shelter-in-place kits.
Source: Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency
"I've been lied to so many times by the government," says Randy Hayes, 51, senior pastor of Church on the Rock. He says the preparations are "just to appease the minds of the people, so there's not widespread panic."
Many take it as a given that there will be an accident at the incinerator, where the Army will destroy 4.5 million pounds of rockets containing sarin and VX nerve agents and mustard gas. (These are among the chemicals the U.S. government said were being produced by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government and could be used by terrorists.)
People here say they know what it's like to be betrayed.
Like thousands of others, Hayes is a member of one of several class-action lawsuits against the old Monsanto chemical plant. It contaminated west Anniston for decades with polychlorinated bbiphenyls — or PCBs — which cause cancer and birth defects and perhaps learning disabilities.
It didn't help that two days after starting to burn the chemical weapons, the Army said last Monday it was shutting down for a day because of mechanical problems. It shut down again Tuesday but was operating Wednesday.
'Absolute madness'
Rufus Kinney, a Jacksonville State University English teacher, lives 15 miles from the incinerator. He was the lone protester outside the gates when it was fired up Aug. 9. "The irony is that our government is looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and at the same time, they're not protecting us from our own weapons of mass destruction," he says. "This is absolute madness. I call it crazy in Alabama taken to a new level."
The Calhoun County Emergency Agency has distributed more than 17,000 gas masks, almost 12,000 portable air filtration units and almost 14,000 shelter-in-place kits. The Army says it is highly unlikely that any of it will ever be needed.
Michael Abrams, an incinerator spokesman, says burning the chemicals is a safe method of disposal. Since 1990, he says, the Army has burned 16,214,000 pounds of chemical agents at two other facilities — Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Utah and Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Hawaii.
Abrams acknowledges that those facilities are in remote locations — the ocean and a sparsely populated area. He says there were "only two or three" occurrences of any chemical agent escaping. Opponents of incineration argue that the method has never been used in a populated area.
They say the government broke a promise to retrofit all schools in the pink zone before starting to burn chemical weapons. (The Army says it will burn only at night and on weekends until all buildings are retrofitted.)
Environmentalists from here and around the country say "neutralization," another means of chemical weapons destruction used elsewhere in the nation, is less risky. But Abrams says that decades ago, when the decision was made to destroy Anniston's chemical weapons, "There was not a neutralization technology that handled (sarin), VX, mustard, explosives and contaminated metal parts."
The Anniston facility contains about 7% of the nation's 31,500 tons of stockpiled chemical weapons. Those arms are being destroyed to comply with an international treaty to neutralize the weapons by 2007. More than 660,000 chemical weapons are stored here, in concrete bunkers known as "igloos." The Cold War relics were quietly brought here during the 1960s.
Some local political leaders support the Army's plan.
Anniston Mayor Chip Howell and six other Calhoun County mayors pushed for the incineration to start. Howell says he has gotten no "negative feedback" from citizens since the burning started.
"I'm as comfortable as I can be," he says. "The maximum protection has been offered. This being the third generation of incinerators, they've been doing it for many years."
Worried about 'the plume'
In Anniston, and in the cities and towns nearby, people talk a lot about "the plume" — an accidentally released toxic cloud — and how fast it might move over their homes and schools. Brenda Lindell is concerned and she doesn't even live in the pink zone. Her home in east Anniston is in a nearby area where the residents got air filtration units and shelter-in-place kits.
Lindell, a founder of Families Concerned about Nerve Gas Incineration, fought the project for more than a decade. She and others here say they favor neutralization, which will be used to destroy chemical weapons and chemicals in Colorado, Kentucky, Indiana and Maryland.
"You think that's going to keep me safe?" she says, poking through the box containing her kit. "I don't think so."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-08-17-anniston-usat_x.htm