There was a great deal of clarity in a recent Star series on the chemical weapons stockpile at the Anniston Army Depot.With a lot of skill and hard work, reporter Jason Landers painted the picture. And from that picture we saw that: emergency preparedness in the county is a mess; our county officials and those from the federal government are bickering to the end; the stockpile is leaking and incineration provides us with the best available method of disposal.
We’ll take the opportunity again to restate our position on the matter of disposal of the stockpile: Burn it as quickly and as safely as possible.
That, by the way, is also the feeling of the National Research Council, a government body made up of top scientists in the field of chemical weapons disposal.
It’s time then, to get started. But alas, yet another hurdle to startup is before us — a request filed in federal court in Birmingham to halt the incineration process permanently.
We would hope the Justice Department would request the judge to dismiss the motion as quickly as possible and we would hope the attorneys for the government would offer the NRC report to the judge as a reason to dismiss it.
For the great danger, is continued delay of incineration. Every day the stockpile sits there it presents a danger to our community. We have the vast majority of the leaking GB weapons in the nation and, as time wears on, more and more of those weapons will develop leaks.
Just as soon as the incinerator begins operation we can start to get rid of this deadly material. Every rocket burned up is one less to worry about.
We’ll also take a moment to address the issue of emissions. Long have many opponents of the incineration process pointed out that the incinerator will produce many harmful emissions and for that reason alone the Army should kill the program and introduce a neutralization process.
As Landers’ series pointed out, however, the incinerator will produce fewer emissions than is already being upchucked into the sky around here.
We wonder, for example, why opponents do not get as exercised about Alabama Power’s Gaston Plant in Shelby County. That plant emits 384 times more particulate matter, 87 times more nitrogen dioxide, 331 times the carbon monoxide, 400 times the volatile organic compounds and 2,741 times the sulfur dioxide that Anniston’s chemical incinerator will be allowed to emit.
We feel it’s time to get started Calhoun County, time to begin ridding ourselves of this menace. The quicker we get this process under way the safer we will be.
