Calhoun County officials have sent a letter to the Pentagon asking for funding to equip seven county public schools for protection against a chemical release.
The schools are located near the Anniston Army Depot, where 7 percent of the nation's chemical weapons await destruction in an Army-built incinerator. County officials want to fit the schools with air systems that would allow students and teachers to take shelter in the buildings rather than evacuate them in the unlikely event of accident at the depot.
The seven schools mentioned in the letter, which was addressed to Undersecretary of Defense Pete Aldridge, are in Saks, Weaver, and Ohatchee. They are not on the list of buildings currently scheduled to be modified for collective protection, a fact that has piqued local officials.
"That is unacceptable," said county schools superintendent Jacky Sparks. "There is not enough time to evacuate these schools, if there's an accident and the wind is right."
Army spokeswoman Cathy Coleman declined to comment on the letter, saying that school over-pressurization is the responsibility of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Defense Department and FEMA officials could not be reached Friday afternoon for comment.
Over-pressurization requires the installation of a system that pumps a building full of air so that no outside air can enter. The bill for the systems at the one private and four public school that have them was $7.5 million.
This week's letter marks the first time Sparks, who supports incineration, has made his view on the collective protection situation public.
The seven schools at issue in the letter are Saks Elementary, Saks Middle, Saks High, Weaver Elementary, Weaver High, Ohatchee High and Ohatchee Elementary.
Ohatchee Elementary is under construction. Ohatchee High School has been approved for shelter-in-place without the air system.
The Saks and Weaver schools were on the list of 37 facilities approved for collective protection by FEMA and the Army in 1996. That number was reduced after an evaluation of the buildings' locations, the number of people who use them and the feasibility of their being adapted.
But, Calhoun County EMA Director Mike Burney said, this evaluation was made using old toxicity information on the chemical agents on the depot. New figures, which are awaiting integration into the area's emergency planning, could change the picture for collective protection.
"It may require every school in the county to be over-pressurized," he said.
Four public schools in the county have received the over-pressurization system: Wellborn Elementary, Wellborn High School, Bynum Elementary and Coldwater Elementary. Alexandria Elementary and Alexandria High School are in the process of receiving the system.
Sparks said schools in DeArmanville, White Plains, and Pleasant Valley, as well as the Career-Technical School in Jacksonville, could be successfully evacuated.
Though no precise dollar amount has been established for the work the county is requesting, the letter quotes an Army Corps of Engineers estimate that the work on the schools will cost $10 million.
Sparks, Burney and all five members of the county commission signed the five-page document, which was printed on county letterhead and dated Dec. 20.
The letter criticizes the Army and FEMA's failure to meet the county's budget requests and questions Aldridge's authorization of $6 million to study the issue of collective protection.
It reads: "We, however, strongly believe that, given the fact that over pressurization provides the highest level of protection for these schools (i.e. maximum protection), there is no need to hire any more private contractors to look at the problem."
The letter comes less than two weeks after a meeting with state, federal and local officials over the issue of collective protection of county schools.
