Group tries to stall Army's plans to burn chemical agents

WASHINGTON -- An environmental group filed an 11th-hour petition Monday seeking to delay this week's planned burning of chemical weapons at an Army incinerator in Anniston, Ala.

The Chemical Weapons Working Group filed the emergency petition here in federal court, asking it to at least stall the incineration -- set to begin as early as Wednesday -- until it can hear a lawsuit seeking to block the burning.

"We feel we have more than enough evidence to make our case," said Craig Williams, the group's executive director. "We feel clearly that the violations that we're articulating are obvious, and we're hoping the judge recognizes the severity of the problems down there."

But barring court intervention, Army officials were moving ahead with plans to burn the first rocket, perhaps around 9 a.m. Wednesday. It is expected to take seven years to destroy the 2,254 tons of Cold War-era chemical weapons housed at Anniston Army Depot.

"We're prepared to begin operations on Wednesday, and that's where our focus is," said Mike Abrams, the incinerator's Army public affairs officer. "We're not really paying any attention to any threats by anybody to try to stop us."

Abrams says continued storage of the weapons presents far more of a public health risk than incineration, which he contends has safeguards covering every conceivable scenario.

The working group's five-page request for a temporary restraining order cited both legal and public health reasons for a delay. About 35,000 people live within nine miles of the depot, and more than 250,000 live within a 30-mile circle.

Although communities in Colorado and Kentucky were allowed to use non-incineration alternatives for disposing of their weapons stockpiles, Alabama and other sites haven't even received an environmental assessment of those alternatives, CWWG argued. That, it said, violated federal environmental law.

The request also pointed out that schools near the incinerator are each being provided with an over-pressurized area where students and teachers could go in the event of an emergency. However, the pressurization will not be complete until after Oct. 1, the request states, and many area schools will begin classes this week.

"My daughter begins school on Wednesday," Abrams said. "I'm very passionate about this. They are pulling at straws by making comments like that."

Once the first rocket is destroyed, Abrams says Army officials will closely scrutinize the work before starting on a second. The process will begin slowly with every detail monitored, he said.

After the rocket is drained, it is cut into eight pieces and those pieces are stored in deactivation furnaces. As an extra precaution, the furnaces will be used only at night and during the weekend while the community finishes over-pressurizing the schools, Abrams said.

But Williams said it's not only schools but nursing homes, community buildings and various other facilities that aren't yet ready for a disaster should one occur.

"They're the most defenseless of the citizenry in the kill zone, and they're being ignored or abandoned in favor of the Army's rush to get this operational," Williams said.

A typical preliminary injunction process can take more than three weeks, Williams said. However, because Army Secretary Les Brownlee announced last Thursday that burning could begin this week, the group was allowed to pursue the emergency petition instead.

The weapons housed in Anniston represent just a small part of the 31,000 tons the United States has agreed to destroy by 2007 under an international treaty. Roughly 25 percent of the stockpile has been destroyed at incinerators in Utah and on a tiny atoll in the Pacific.

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On the Net:

Chemical Weapons Working Group: http://www.cwwg.org/