The Anniston Star's editorial of June 10 entitled, “The Cure,” suggests the paper’s editorial board ought to see a doctor. Their selective use of facts and bizarre reasoning demonstrate they really need professional help. The Star applauded Congressman Bob Riley for announcing he will not make policy decisions based on a survey he commissioned because “it’s just a school project.”
The real reason the survey is being discarded, however, is that it did not give The Star and the Army the conclusions they were looking for.
The Star may not want Congressman Riley to use the survey in his future decisions, but that did not stop The Star's editorial writers from citing those portions of the survey that justify The Star's position on incineration, which is nothing more than "Burn! Burn! Burn! Just like the Army, The Star claims there is total risk in continued storage of the stockpile and no risk in the incineration process. The survey, however, found that the respondents have more common sense than the Army may have thought.
As the survey noted, “respondents perceive that the storage and incineration of chemical weapons pose serious risks to the community.” They understand that when the Army starts handling these deadly agents risks go up, not down.
The Star, however, does not want to be bothered with any of this. According to The Star, all we need to do is turn on the incinerator and, just as quickly as a shot at the doctor’s office, all of our problems, our risks, and our deadly chemicals will mysteriously vanish.
Of course, The Star’s world flies in the face of the Army's admission that the incineration process will take 12 years.
It also ignores the fact that the Army plans to use a totally untried technology known as “chop and drop,” which the National Research Council said is so dangerous that it should never be used.
It also ignores the threat of terrorism, something specifically excluded in the incinerator’s environmental impact statement a decade ago, but now, after Sept. 11th, is an obvious potential threat.
The Star’s editorial attacks the local EMA for having the audacity to ask the federal government to provide this community with the protection it needs before this destruction process begins. The editorial then attacks Governor Don Siegelman for having the audacity to go to court to require the Department of Defense to live up to its own findings and promises regarding these safety measures.
The governor is simply responding to the legitimate requests for help from our teachers, our school superintendents, the parents of our school children, and our county commission.
The special interest here is the Army, to which The Star continues to pander.
The Star claims the governor's decision to reinstate his injunction is “detached from the reality of the situation.”
That statement alone is proof of just how out of touch with reality The Star has become on this issue.
Deborah A. Scheer
Anniston
