Public Law 99-145 mandates “maximum protection for the environment, the general public, and the personnel who are involved in the destruction of the lethal chemical agents and munitions...”
Regardless of whether one supports incineration or neutralization, we must all stand together in demanding that the maximum protection to which we have a legal right be in place before ANY nerve agent is destroyed. Please remember that ours is by far the most populous chemical weapons stockpile site and the ONLY chemical weapons incinerator site east of the Mississippi.
I believe that the single most important component of maximum protection is the safety of our children, and thus the most important (but not the only) thing we must do before the destruction begins is to get all our schools overpressurized. The stockpile will be stable for the next four decades, so we don’t need to worry over the fact that it will take some time to get this done. But the federal funding to cover the cost has not been forthcoming even though the County Commissioners (who are legally responsible for protecting the public) and the County EMA have been requesting it for years. Why are the Army and FEMA treating us this way?
Our County Commissioners, EMA Director Mike Burney, and Sen. Richard Shelby are to be commended. We must stand with them and also work to get Mayors Howell and Smith and Congressman Rogers, who have not been proactive in demanding maximun protection, to do so at this time.
Rufus Kinney Jacksonville
Lott
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) made this statement: “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And, if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.” Lott couldn’t explain what he meant by “all these problems.” But, an uncounted number of folks have been telling us “what he really meant.” And, besides that, it is all the fault of the “liberals.”
“Liberals” can’t “fire” a GOP Senate Majority Leader. Lott is not gone because of his remarks.
He is gone because his “apologies” were beginning to sound almost sincere and that was worrying the segment of the party devoted to bigotry. Although most Republicans aren’t bigots, they have to stroke the hard-core bigots to win presidential elections in some southern states.
Carl L. Hess, CW4, U.S. Army (Ret.) Ozark
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