Although the data still needs to be scrutinized, it appears that the Army’s chemical weapons incinerator has passed two key rounds of testing.The facility’s liquid incinerator — that’s the part of the facility designed to get rid of the nerve agents and mustard gas — successfully destroyed more than 99.9999 percent of a surrogate material, according to the Army. Since the material fed into the incinerator is more difficult to destroy than the nerve agents, the incinerator should destroy an even higher percentage of the chemical weapons.
Now, if officials poring over thousands of pages of data confirm the figures, the Army will be a big step closer to ridding our community of this deadly menace once and for all.
We all should be pleased at this development because it seems to show that the technology designed to destroy the weapons is sound and that we, at last, seem to be moving toward a resolution of the problem.
As long as the stockpile is with us, it will cause us worry, it will depress our property values, it will hamper economic development and it will give us a certain reputation. But the day the incinerator begins destroying the weapons, all of that will begin to improve.
There are, of course, many issues that still have to be worked through. There is a danger that the start of the incinerator will become politicized. Already Gov. Siegelman is taking it in that direction.
Emergency preparedness also remains a problem. But, as always, many of our leaders incorrectly associate the start of incineration with an increase in danger. In fact, the danger is now. Every day the stockpile sits there, the more dangerous it becomes.
What we need, what we have long needed, is an emergency preparedness plan for this county. Washington bureaucrats have been slow at times to understand the situation here, but our local officials, especially those at the Emergency Management Agency, have failed to ready and educate this community about what to do in case of an accident or incident at the depot.
We are simply not prepared and, until the EMA starts cooperating, we will remain unprepared.
Another issue that still needs to be resolved is monitoring for emissions at the incinerator. Before trial burns begin in December, a so-called shakedown burn will start in October. This is when the real thing will go into the furnaces.
Although Army officials say the emissions will be near zero to begin with and we have nothing to worry about, no monitoring of the exhaust stacks is planned.
This is a mistake. The Army can give some scientific and engineering reasons for not doing this, but it will do nothing to earn the trust of this community. When the first weapons go into the furnace, we want to know what is coming out the other end. And, by the way, we do not care one iota how much it will cost to carry out this monitoring.
Tests so far seem to suggest the incinerator is on track and remains the quickest, safest way to destroy the stockpile. But if additional safeguards can be added, then they should be added.
