Call for Incineration Investigation/Shutdown - Press Release

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

for immediate release: Thursday, February 16, 2004

Chemical Weapons Working Group
P.O. Box 467, Berea, Kentucky   40403
Phone:  (859) 986-7565      Fax: (859) 986-2695
e-mail: craig@cwwg.org
web: <www.cwwg.org

for more information contact:
Craig Williams  859-986-7565
David Christian 256-237-0338
Rufus Kinney 256-435-4743


CITIZENS GROUPS CALL FOR HALT OF OPERATIONS AND AN INVESTIGATION INTO
THE ARMY'S ALABAMA CHEMICAL WEAPONS INCINERATOR:  CITE MISINFORMATION,
WORKER EXPOSURES, REPEATED SHUTDOWNS

In a letter sent today to the Acting Under Secretary of Defense (AT&L),
who has ultimate authority over the nation's chemical weapons
destruction program, more than a dozen organizations called for the
suspension of operations and an investigation into the problems that are
plaguing the Anniston Alabama incinerator.  Calling the burner's
performance "a recipe for disaster," the citizens' letter points to
technical and design problems, unplanned shutdowns and "near misses"
which indicate serious safety issues at the facility.  The letter also
criticizes the Army's reluctance to be forthright about the problems.

Among the issues the citizen groups want investigated are:
? the February 4th  incident in which workers were exposed to the nerve
agent sarin; ? the repeated agent alarms inside the plant;
? the technical malfunctions that have caused numerous unscheduled
shutdowns; and
? the incomplete and misleading information disseminated to the
community.

David Christian, a member of Serving Alabama's Future Environment, is
concerned that the Army is covering up events that could harm the
community and his family. "Over four months ago, the citizens of this
community formally requested that specific information be forthcoming
from the incinerator. Our request went unheeded. Instead the Army
clamped down even tighter on the release of information concerning the
plant's operations. Unless the Army is forced to admit the details of
events like shutdowns or worker exposures, we get piecemeal and
misleading information, if we get any information at all. Why do they
feel like the community most affected can't be trusted with the truth?"

The February 4th worker exposure incident is a case in point.  In press
releases concerning the incident, the Army failed to report that two
workers had been contaminated with sarin and stated erroneously that the
incident was limited to one building and was not linked to the Army's
controversial processing of gelled rockets. However, a week later, after
determined probing by local media and confronted by information from
anonymous sources, the Army finally admitted that the workers had been
exposed to nerve agent, that alarms had sounded in the medical clinic in
addition to the disposal building and that the workers were indeed
performing activities associated with the experimental gelled rockets
destruction process when the contamination occurred. Craig Williams,
director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group said, "This pattern of
deliberate non-information and misinformation is the same as the Army
used at incinerators in the Pacific and Utah, only in Alabama it is even
more callous. In Anniston, Alabama, there are more than 75,000 residents
in the immediate impact zone who are either being cut off from
information or fed fabricated reports filled with spin and half truths.
This is not acceptable when dealing with these extremely lethal chemical
agents that have the potential for severely impacting the health and
safety of the community and workers. A thorough  investigation of last
week's incident, the hundreds of agent alarms that have sounded at the
plant and the numerous technical malfunctions in a supposedly 'mature'
and 'proven' incinerator design needs to be undertaken immediately."
--30--

copies of the Wynne letter are available upon request - or at
<www.cwwg.org> as of 2/17/04

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