In this season of the year when football first begins to settle upon our minds, let us use our beloved game for a moment as a way to describe some recent change of plans at the incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot.Picture this: For weeks the football team has been practicing a certain defense, a straightforward 4-3 formation. Then, on the afternoon of the game, when the butterflies are fluttering, when the band is playing, when the crowd is streaming into the stadium, the defensive coach announces to the players that no, the 4-3 won’t work. (He’s been out watching the opposing team warm up.) Instead he wants to go with the heretofore unheard of Inverted Diamond defense. Uncertainty and uneasiness settle in. The team tenses, the players try but forget assignments. The gridiron contest turns ugly for the home team.
One of the toughest challenges for anyone is to adjust to change. But if you are going to change something on someone, at least give them a chance to adjust to it. Don’t pop the Inverted Diamond on them at game time.
But that is exactly what appears to be going on at the Depot. For years now, the Army, the contractor, the workers and the community have been operating under the idea that the destruction of the chemical weapons would be carried out in a particular manner. But now, weeks before we are to begin that process, the Army is proposing what appears to be a major modification to that plan.
And what is worse, this plan, by the Army’s own admission, slightly increases the overall risk to the community. That can not and should not be.
What is also disturbing about this is that the Army is not allowing the particulars of this plan to be disseminated to the community, unlike previous risk assessments.
And that is odd, indeed, especially considering that we are in the middle of a public comment period over these changes and a public meeting is scheduled for Aug. 8, where no doubt a number of citizens will make their displeasure with the changes known. Isn’t it to everyone’s advantage to know every single detail of this plan?
The Army’s new plan will destroy the stockpile sooner. But that is much less important than getting rid of it safely. Whatever bureaucrat in Washington is pushing for this change should realize that.
But bureaucrats don’t always do what is right for Calhoun County, Ala. So we propose that the National Academy of Sciences, the preeminent organization on this issue, take the reports compiled by Army contractors on these changes and go over them along with the original plan. This could be done quickly, much quicker than having the NAS do its own study, which would take a minimum of six months.
Scientists at that organization are liable to take a look at this and say in no uncertain terms that it is way too close to game time to change the defense now.
