[CPEO-MEF] Test burns begin at Army chemical weapons incinerator

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Test burns begin at Army chemical weapons incinerator

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 18 - After destroying aging chemical weapons in 
incinerators at remote sites in the Pacific and the Utah desert, the 
Army began burning test materials Saturday in a well-populated part of 
Alabama. 

PROTESTERS HAVE QUESTIONED whether the Army would be able to save lives 
if there were an accident at the Anniston Army depot's incinerator 
facility, about 60 miles east of Birmingham.  

Saturday's burn was the first time the military had conducted a 
large-scale test of a chemical munitions incinerator in an area where 
thousands of people could be at risk if an accident occurred involving 
real nerve agents. 

The other two places where the army has destroyed old chemical weapons - 
Johnston Atoll in Hawaii and Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in 
western Utah - have been sparsely populated. 

The Army estimates 72,600 people live within about nine miles of 
Anniston, where bunkers hold 2,254 tons of rockets, artillery shells, 
land mines and bulk containers of chemical weapons.  The obsolete but 
still deadly munitions, some dating to World War II, contain mustard, 
Sarin and VX gases which must be destroyed under terms of an 
international chemical weapons treaty. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.msnbc.com/local/wpmi/m160839.asp