The Army's plans to accelerate the incineration of the chemical weapons stored near Anniston has led local officials to call for a new risk assessment of the destruction process.
The plans, first reported in Sunday's Anniston Star, are projected to cut eight or nine months off the overall program, but, by the Army's admission, will result in a "slight increase" of statistical risk to the community. This is because the changes will delay the beginning of the destruction of the rockets that contain VX nerve agent, the riskiest of the weapons stored at the Anniston Army Depot.
The increase in risk caused critics of the program to allege that the Army is prioritizing speed above safety and led the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency to call for a separate evaluation of risk by state environmental regulators.
"Without having seen a quantitative risk assessment for incineration, we're going to ask the (Alabama Department of Environmental Management) to conduct a risk assessment before granting any permit modifications," said EMA spokesman Brian Lazenby.
An ADEM official said that's not likely to happen.
"That is not a regulatory document," said Justin Martindale, staff engineer. "That's an internal document."
The Army recently completed a new quantitative risk assessment which, according to incinerator spokesman Mike Abrams, won't be available to the "general public" because of security concerns. Abrams said a separate review of risk was performed on the Army's accelerated plans in Anniston. That document also is not available to the public.
In recent weeks the Army has begun moving on two separate plans. The first, which has already been implemented into scheduling, will allow the facility to switch back and forth between the destruction of rockets filled with GB nerve agent and artillery shells with the same agent. Previous schedules had the facility focusing solely on the rockets in its first months of operations.
The second is a co-processing plan that would have the rockets and shells destroyed at the same time. The shells would have their explosives removed before arriving at the incinerator in a reconfiguration of the munitions that would free up equipment also needed to process rockets. This change would require a major permit modification and, the Army says, would lead to considerable gains in the time it would take to destroy the 2,200-ton stockpile.
A public meeting on this issue is scheduled for Aug. 8.
To some, pushing back the destruction of the VX rockets sent a clear message about the Army's priorities.
"Doing that at the expense of risk to the community is compelling evidence there are concerns other than safety and risk," said David Christian, a longtime critic of the incinerator. "When you look down the line it comes down to dollars."
The local schedule changes come as part of a nationwide plan to speed up the destruction of the Cold War weapons, an effort prompted by increased terrorist threats. But well before Sept. 11, the chemical demilitarization program had faced criticism for budget overruns and schedule slippages.
Moreover, officials at the Anniston incinerator have been criticized for a permit modification request that could allow them to burn rockets with gelled agent at an unprecedented rate, a plan that doesn't jibe with the recommendations of a body of scientists.
"No one has any idea of the effects when taken in combination," said Elizabeth Crowe, a spokeswoman for the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Kentucky-based organization that opposes incineration. "These changes show the willingness of the Army to push the limit."
The Army has insisted on the safety of the incineration technology overall and these changes in particular. Abrams, the incinerator spokesman, described the changes in risk as "prolonged risk" from allowing the VX rockets to have a longer life.
"It's not that we're doing something that's more dangerous," he said.
"We will not just blindly complete all the GB," he said. "As we close in on the end of the rocket campaign, we'll see where we're at."
The Army could not provide an estimate of how much money the changes would save the Anniston program, which over the course of its lifetime is expected to cost $1 billion.
"We continue to look at lots of drills," said Greg Mahall, an Army spokesman in Aberdeen, Md. "I can't give you a figure."
