Dodging the bullet — Depot accident highlights need for incinerator
In our opinion
08-16-2001
It's been said before, but there's no harm in saying it again: The chemical stockpile at the Anniston Army Depot is far more dangerous sitting in the igloos than it is being burned up in the incinterator.
Don't believe it? Talk to any of the 11 workers who were tested this week for exposure to sarin following a spill of the chemical agent from an M55 rocket last Thursday. Eight ounces of the poisonous liquid leaked while the workers were repacking the rockets. The rockets have since been placed in larger containers and sealed.
The good news is that none of the workers tested positive, meaning the sarin hadn't affected them physically. They - and we - can only thank our lucky stars that these people weren't sickened or worse.
The moral couldn't be simpler: The depot workers wouldn't have been exposed if the rockets and their deadly contents had been destroyed in the incinerator. The poison is far, far more dangerous sitting in rusty, 50-something-year-old rockets than it is being burned in a state of the art facility. Incineration reduces the agent as far as it will go.
Nothing is perfect, life isn't perfect - no one can guarantee you won't get creamed by a drunk on the way home from work tonight - but the incinerator is equipped with a redundancy of filters and back-ups, and is a far sight safer than continued storage.
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