Two pieces of paper illustrate the high stakes and high-running emotions that charge a central issue in what stands to be one of the most contentious local elections next fall. One, a resolution drawn up by the Calhoun County Commission last summer, was sent to the Anniston and Oxford city councils asking for their support in an effort to delay the startup of the chemical weapons incinerator. The other is a petition created earlier this month by the county’s Chamber of Commerce beseeching the governor to drop a legal effort that also seeks to stall the incinerator.
Robert Downing was one of the two commissioners who lobbied the Anniston council to sign the resolution. Larry Sylvester is the outgoing executive vice president of the chamber and a signer of its petition. On Monday, Sylvester announced his bid for the commission seat Downing has occupied for eight years, perhaps making incineration a flashpoint in a contest that, with other candidates, might be dominated by concerns about patching potholes and other chores more typically the domain of county governments in Alabama.
Both have done their homework: Sylvester has made trips to the Anniston incinerator as well as to a similar facility in Tooele, Utah while Downing has learned on the job, testifying in front of a body of scientists in Washington. They have seen the studies and know the jargon. Yet, as the petition and the resolution spell out, the men hold vastly different opinions on the disposal of the more than 2,200 tons of chemical weapons stored at the Anniston Army Depot, a complex technical and political issue widely seen as key to the future of Calhoun County.
True to his reputation as an environmentalist, the incumbent Downing has been a gadfly to the incinerator program. He voices strong doubts about the safety of the facility and, fearful of the environmental harm the incinerator could do even if it functions correctly, he advocates that the Army use an alternative method to destroy the weapons. With a distaste for the program, he speaks of incineration in the same breath as he does the massive PCB contamination that looms over Anniston.
“I have never been in support of the incinerator as a method to destroy chemical weapons,” he said. “Incineration, at its heart and soul, is guaranteed to add to the pollution in the air, water and land.”
Sylvester, a Republican and a former FBI agent, is like a photographic negative of Downing, a Democrat and owner of a general store. Sylvester trusts the Army line that the risk to the community is in keeping the moldering weapons around as possible target for terrorist attacks or natural catastrophes. And he believes that incineration is now the best way to get rid of them.
“I strongly feel that storage is the risk,” he said. “Incineration is the answer.”
Downing supports Gov. Don Siegelman’s attempt to get a federal judge to halt testing on the facility until a number of protective measures, including protective hoods for civilians, are paid for by the Army and Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“The plant shouldn’t be operational until the government lives up to its lawful duty, let along its moral duty,” he said.
Downing has been a member of a commission that has threatened legal action of its own on this matter. Even before litigation seemed imminent, the commission tried to cajole the federal government into spending more money on emergency preparedness here. Asking Anniston and Oxford to sign off on a delaying tactic was one in a series of maneuvers to bring tens of millions of dollars for emergency preparedness to the county.
While some in the community say the commission politicized the issue, Downing regards the actions as a campaign “to raise the bar and standard for accountability by the Army and FEMA and the folks in this process.”
The effort led the Pentagon to sign off on $40.5 million worth of emergency measures for the community near the depot. But the pitched political battle that went on before this commitment of funding only picked up again in January after FEMA backed away from a few items the Pentagon agreed to pay for.
Sylvester has a different interpretation of the federal government’s commitment to the county. He believes while the Army and FEMA should pay the full dollar amount they committed to last year and pay for the protection of local schools, the money shouldn’t go towards protective hoods, or, as he calls them, gas masks. He thinks that in the event of a chemical accident residents would be safe by using duct tape and plastic over their windows, the procedure recommended by FEMA.
“I think gas masks are ridiculous,” Sylvester said, echoing FEMA’s concerns that issuing protective respiratory devices could actually cause safety issues. Moreover, he said, he believes that issuing the hoods could be a bar to economic development, a high priority for him.
Downing disagrees. To him, duct tape and plastic aren’t enough protection for those who live in the pink zones, the areas nearest the depot.
Whether protective hoods will shape up as an issue to the voters of District 2 is uncertain as the area is carved out of the southeastern section of the county, which contains eastern Anniston, and doesn’t encompass any pink zones. Indeed, with a fort to be redeveloped, pollution to worry about, and, of course, roads to be maintained, incineration is one of a plethora of issues voters on which voters can hinge their decision.
Despite the distance between the two men on the issue of the incinerator, neither wanted to be pigeonholed on the basis of his views on this one issue. Downing said he didn’t want this to be a
“litmus test” and seconded Sylvester’s eagerness to talk about other things, such as achievements from his political past and other challenges to the county’s future.
And no matter its stance, the county commission won’t make direct decisions about what technology is used to destroy the blister and nerve agent or what emergency measures residents should have. Still, the commission’s actions have drawn the attention of political heavyweights in Montgomery and Washington, D.C. who have been able to flex their political muscles with the Army and FEMA.
