Emma Smith enjoyed a cool Saturday afternoon in front of her home in Shady Acres trailer home park, unfazed by the first day of testing at the chemical weapons incinerator a few miles away.
"I'm glad they're doing the testing before they burn," Ms. Smith said. "I really think they should get rid of them," she said of the chemical weapons stockpile the incinerator was built to destroy.
Sitting nearby, Jimmy Mahan, who worked at the Anniston Army Depot for 18 years, agreed.
"I want them to go ahead with the testing, make sure it works and get rid of that mess," Mahan said.
Officials at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility at Anniston Army Depot reported no major glitches after the first day of testing the facility's pollution abatement system and liquid incinerator.
Saturday was the first day of a nine-day test run to gauge the facility's ability to destroy chemical agents and to collect data on emissions from the incineration process. No chemical agent was used in the testing. Non-hazardous materials are burned in what is termed "surrogate" testing.
"This is a critical test to the facility," said Doug Hamrick, plant manager in charge of the tests. "What we're trying to prove is that our pollution abatement system will perform to our design."
The purpose of the tests is to demonstrate to regulators that the incinerator can perform to the levels set by the facility's permit to burn chemical weapons.
The facility must reach a destruction and efficiency rating of .999999 before actual chemical weapons incineration can begin.
"I would not be surprised if our data at the end of nine days is better than that," said Mike Abrams, a spokesman for the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. "If it's not that high, we'll have to go back and figure something else out.
The testing incinerates Trichlorobenzene and Tetrachloroethylene instead of live agent because they are more difficult to destroy than chemical agents are, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Test results will be turned over to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management within 45 days, after extensive lab work, Abrams said.
More tests on the liquid incinerator and pollution abatement system are scheduled over the next eight days.
"The pollution that would come out of the stack is extremely low; (the pollution abatement system) removes virtually all the particles from the exhaust," Hamrick said.
Another series of tests on another of the facility's burners is scheduled for late April or early May.
While testing at the incinerator moves forward, controversy continues to surround the project.
A court date concerning a lawsuit filed by Gov. Don Siegelman has been set for Thursday.
The lawsuit seeks to stop incineration until the Army turns over all of $40.5 county officials have said they need for emergency preparedness.
Abrams said the incinerator could be operational by September.
James White, a bricklayer whose home is on Morrisville Road nearer to the depot than Ms. Smith, said the tests don't worry him, but he thought testing would be more extensive.
"I figured maybe we'd see smoke, but we haven't seen any all day," White said.
He wondered whether the testing period was long enough to determine whether the chemical weapons could be safely incinerated and whether sufficient information was gathered in the process.
Saturday's tests came one day after the Army finished destroying all the Sarin nerve gas, or GB, at their facility in Tooele, Utah.
The Army began the destruction process in 1996 and disposed of 12 million pounds of GB.
