Living in a neighborhood where folks worry too much about what poisons lurk in their bloodstreams and curse the soot that clings to light-colored patio furniture and paint jobs, Paul Lemons welcomes the protective hood the government will soon give him."I think it's going to be great," said the 53-year-old Ware Avenue resident. "That's one of the concerns of everyone in this area, that we'll be able to have some protection."
This comes from a lifelong western Anniston resident who, by his own account, doesn't even worry much about the reasons he'll be getting the hood - the 2,200 tons of chemical weapons that rest a few miles away, right next to the incinerator that could begin destroying them in the fall.
There are, after all, enough worries already. He lives within a mile of one company that's tied up in a high-profile lawsuit over millions of pounds of PCBs it loosed into the community and another whose air pollution led to one of the biggest environmental fines possible in Alabama.
Lemons figures the crew at the incinerator knows what they're doing. Still, he said, "It's good to go ahead and give us something, just in case."
This almost nonchalant acceptance of what is essentially a larger and more user-friendly version of a gas mask is telling. "Just in case" may be the only rationale you need for such an item, incredible as it may sound to an outsider, in a place saturated by environmental and health problems.
But this is not the whole story.
In the few days since the federal government announced a decision to release millions of dollars for the hoods and other protective equipment, no consensus has formed on whether this equipment will be a good thing or a detriment.
Some believe that it will soothe anxiety about how the community would be protected during a chemical weapons accident. Some believe the hoods themselves will pose a danger. Others worry it will broaden the area's already pronounced stigma as an industrial dumping ground. And then there are those who applauded the move simply because it will get politics out the way of the disposal of the weapons.
While it is too soon to say who is right and who is wrong, there is no doubt that the decision, announced Monday, will open a new chapter in the history of chemical weapons in Anniston.
In leading Gov. Don Siegelman's office to remove a motion seeking to delay the startup of the incinerator, it removed a significant impediment to the elimination of the weapons. However, additional lawsuits are almost certain, likely from incinerator opponents. And even the governor has threatened to sue again if outstanding protection problems are not solved.
Moreover, Calhoun County officials, who have insisted on the hoods as the foundation of their plan for protecting the 36,000 residents nearest the depot, say they will soon begin a full-fledged public information campaign. In addition to reinforcing older lessons on emergency zones, siren tones and evacuation routes, the campaign will instruct people on how to shelter-in-place, using the hoods, a recirculation air filter, and kit with duct tape and plastic sheets. The county will also participate in the six-county media blitz set to kick off in a few weeks.
Before the federal government said it would pay for the hoods, the county would only tell the community to evacuate during a chemical accident, an action studies show would not be feasible in many scenarios.
With the hoods part of the plan, the county may feel better about advising residents in the pink zones to take shelter, but questions linger about how county schools will be protected and whether the incorporation of new toxicity data will show that more people are at risk.
"We will go ahead with the public information and education campaign," said Brian Lazenby, spokesman for the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency. "But there are some areas where we can't tell people what to do, such as in nursing homes and schools."
Safety
Resignation with a dollop of mistrust is the order of the day in Bynum's Shady Acres Mobile Home Community, the place to go when you want to see what it's like to live less than two miles from some of the most lethal chemicals in the world.
On a recent blistering day, with children cooling off in the mist of a garden hose, Dena Frlic said she is less than satisfied with how the government has prepared her family for an accident.
"There's no way I'd trust people to get us out of here or let us know," she said.
The 29-year-old Honeywell employee is not sure that plastic and duct tape - which before last week was the anchor of in the federally recommended protection plan - would keep lethal vapor out of her drafty trailer.
Although Frlic is cheered a bit by the thought of a protective hood, a neighbor, 39-year-old Jeanette Reaves, hates the idea, especially since she'd have to wear it while being shut up in the close quarters of her trailer, which swelters in the summer.
"I'm a little leery about having things over my head," she said. "I don't even like hats."
Although county officials have repeatedly said participation in the hood program would be voluntarily, and then only after extended training, some have questioned the equipment's safety. In agreeing to fund the hoods, Federal Emergency Management Agency dropped long-standing objections founded on concerns that if misused the hoods could lead to suffocation.
Others have questioned how well the hoods would function during an accident, especially since nerve agent can leach into the blood through the skin.
"To try to put the hoods in citizens' hands, where their body's being exposed to nerve gas or other gases that might penetrate the bloodstream is asinine," said David Baker, president of Community Against Pollution and a frequent critic of the county government on this issue.
But Eli Henderson, the county commissioner for the area surrounding stockpile and a former depot worker himself, said sheltering is an important accompaniment to the hoods for this very reason.
"If you get your hood on and get inside and don't get any droplets on your skin, then you'll be in pretty good shape," he said.
Anniston City Councilman Rev. Ben Little, whose district covers western Anniston, was unsure about the logistics of the hoods.
"Who will take a mask to the store?" he said. "Who will take it to work?" Little said he would have rather seen the $5 million used for the hoods go toward buying out property owners near the depot.
In sharp contrast, the county has said the hoods are necessary, that because of the high toxicity of the nerve agent at the depot simply taping plastic over windows and doors and staying inside isn't enough protection. Recently, they pointed to the stockpiling of escape hoods for Congressional officials, staffers and tourists at the Capitol as evidence of a turning tide in favor of giving these devices to non-military personnel.
"The EMA and the county have requested a buffet of options, and that is one of the items on their buffet," said Anniston Mayor Chip Howell. "What people choose to use as protection is up to them individually."
Stigma
Everett King, who's been selling real estate in the area for 24 years, can envision a new greeting for those coming to Calhoun County. And it's not the kind of motto that would trip easily off the tongue of a local booster.
"This is a great place to live, but 'Welcome to Calhoun County, here's your gas mask' is not the opening statement you want to start with," he said.
Of course, Anniston already has already had enough trouble with labels that call attention to its environmental problems and economic sluggishness. A Newsweek feature on the chemical weapons and pollution issues dubbed the Model City "Toxic Town."
Grabbing more attention locally was the decision by Forbes magazine to rank Anniston at the rock-bottom of its list of the best small cities to live in.
To King, the hoods will make this worse because it will give the impression the incinerator is the problem when, he believes, it's the remedy to being stuck with the aging stockpile.
"It is a negative in the overall, not just the real estate market, but the overall atmosphere, business climate, recruiting climate in Calhoun County and surrounding areas," he said. "It does hurt the overall business environment as far as trying to recruit people to this area."
Sherri Sumners, president of the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce, disagrees.
"Businesses are a lot more savvy about these issues," she said. "When you present data to them, it's less troublesome to them than it is to residents."
To the county officials who demanded the hoods, in a world where chemical threats seem to be accumulating regularly, the hoods could yield a sense of well-being that some find attractive.
"It's all in how it's perceived and pitched," said the county EMA's Lazenby. "It could be a negative stigma, but in light of Sept. 11, it could make us one of the most prepared communities in the nation."
Said Henderson, the county commissioner, "At some point we've got to wake up and face this problem. We've got to have these hoods. It's a real world out there."
One Anniston resident said he was concerned the city could become "a ghost town" with people afraid to move here.
"Naturally they wouldn't want to come anywhere they'd feel threatened," said Travis Bradford, a Ware Avenue resident. "I wouldn't want to go to the beach and carry a spear everywhere I went. It'll be the same way here in Anniston."
To others this is all just one challenge that will eventually be overcome.
"I don't think it will be a good image that will be shared with people," said Little, the Anniston City Councilman. "But I think in spite of all of the things that are happening around here, we're doing well, and this too shall pass."
