Speak Out

Re "Completing the mission: The county, the incinerator" (Editorial, June 9):

The last line in The Star's recent editorial on Anniston's chemical-weapons incinerator says:

"Calhoun County has lived with weapons destruction for years, and will for several more. Anything above and beyond that is asking too much of residents who've already given a great deal."

What have we given that we have not received? Did we not remove a threat and receive a safer world? Did we not create highly technical, high-paying jobs and receive economic prosperity? Did not many of our schools receive updated HVAC systems; the Calhoun County EMS enhanced communications and emergency alerting systems? Are we not safer and better off today?

I am again stung by myopic Pollyanna visions of people who won't see the bigger picture, who have very shortsighted views steeped in a "not in my back yard" mentality.

Let me restate the premise of The Star's editorial: let's be done with it, never again. I say, if not us, then who? If not now, when? Hundreds of tons of toxic chemicals travel through Alabama every day. Trains and trucks run through Anniston, and much of the cargo is hazardous waste that requires special storage and destruction. The processes to store and destroy the waste are the same that the Army is conducting at the incinerator.

These materials will be put into containers and left for years, even decades, endangering people. Does the name "Monsanto" ring any bells? Passing the buck is wrong because it only moves the accountability down the road to someone else.

We create hazardous products that require mitigation at the end of their life cycle. What do we do with them? How do we manage them?

A unique facility has been fabricated explicitly to do the job. The processes have been tested with the most dangerous chemicals ever created and have proven more than adequate. The demilitarization plant could conduct follow on missions of hazardous-waste disposal that would do so much for not only this community but the state and the region. Someone needs to stand up and say we didn't make this mess but in the name of humanity we can help clean it up.

This would bring us economic support and potentially much good will from both industry and the government. This support would help us improve the rail lines, the interstate, local roads and upgraded infrastructure such as waste treatment and power grid enhancements. This could also bring spin-off technologies and businesses such as renewable energy production or recycling, and new jobs that would go with it.

I cannot disagree any stronger with the retreatist mindset that as up is to down, good is to bad. We need to have open honest dialogue on this issue so we can make informed decisions and not just profess apocalyptic platitudes created to evoke the emotional knee-jerk reactions that do nothing but obfuscate facts.

We can do this; we can help make things better for all of us. We just have to care.

Bob Reaves lives in Jacksonville.