A Senate subcommittee's study into the reuse of the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility at the Anniston Army Depot is stirring fears in some quarters that chemical weapons as well as other substances could be imported here.

In response to the September announcement of the study, Army and local leaders have worked to clarify the intention of the subcommittee and to issue reassurances that the facility would be torn down after the destruction of the existing Anniston stockpile.

"We are going to tear down what we use," said Greg Mahall, chief public information officer for the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen, Md. "[The Anniston incinerator] will not be able to be used for an incinerator by any stretch of the imagination."

Sherri Sumners of the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce and Nathan Hill, the chamber's liaison to the military community, said they had worked with the office of Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, in requesting the study.

Shelby sits on the Senate Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations, which authorized the study on Sept. 10.

Both Sumners and Hill insisted that the study's aim is to determine economic benefits of the future use of the land and buildings at the site, not the incinerator.

In an e-mail to The Star, Sumners addressed the worry of continued destruction of chemical weapons at the facility.

"We are still standing by our promise, as is our congressional delegation; to destroy our stockpile and nobody else's," she wrote. "We will not be bringing chemical weapons in."

She went on to explain that not only would she, the chamber and the community not stand for it, but that it was also politically impossible. Congress would have to vote to reverse its own mandate, that the remaining stockpile sites want to destroy their own chemical munitions and that every state that the weapons would pass through would require the approval of their governors.

"Simply put," she wrote, "it ain't gonna happen."

Hill added in a telephone interview that he and others at the chamber asked for the study because the community needs to start looking at what to do with the site after April 2012, when the stockpile is projected to be destroyed.

"This is not about the continuation of chemical demilitarization, about continuing to destroy chemical weapons," Hill said. "This is about other projects, clean projects, perhaps even green projects.

"We do not," he continued, "want this to be misunderstood. This is about creating jobs and making use of the land, not continuing to use the incinerator."

In the facility's land and out-buildings, and infrastructure, there is an asset Sumners and Hill point out, that should not be forgotten.

After the stockpile is destroyed, Sumners wrote, "There will remain many valuable assets, not the least of which is a highly trained work force. We owe it to ourselves to explore every viable option."

Others say, however, that the language authorizing the study, points toward the possible reuse of the incinerator for the destruction of other materials.

In a letter to The Star, Craig Williams, the director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky., and a frequent critic of the Army's program to incinerate the stockpile in Anniston, calls authorization of the study a "disturbing development," and speaks of the possibility of Anniston becoming a "permanent site for the operation of a commercial incinerator that would take hazardous and highly toxic wastes from around the country and destroy them for decades to come."

Williams says the biggest problem is a change in the law in 2000 that would allow the incinerator to remain open after the destruction of the stockpile.

Indeed, the language change in 2000 seems to allow for this incinerator and others around the country to remain open. Prior to 2000 the language read that after the stockpiles are destroyed the incinerators would be "cleaned, dismantled and disposed of…" to the more ambiguous language in 2000 of "be disposed of in accordance with applicable laws and regulations and mutual agreements between the Secretary of the Army and the governor of the state in which the facility is located."

Mahall, of the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, the entity overseeing destruction of the nation's chemical agent stockpiles, said this change, however, only refers to the destruction of non-stockpiled weapons, not the blanket kind of opening Williams foresees.

The change, he said, would allow "the continued operation of "a stockpile facility for destruction of non-stockpile chemical munitions after destruction of the local stockpile is complete."

Mike Abrams, the public affairs officer the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, said the need could arise when chemical agent munitions are discovered in state non-stockpile sites and that those could be sent here.

He described the possibility of munitions coming from out-of-state, however, as "beyond remote."

Mahall went on to say that the study set to cover the Anniston facility is similar to ones already underway at other disposal sites around the country including Pine Bluff, Ark., and Umatilla, Ore.

"This is about looking at what to do when the facilities close," said Mahall. "What do you do with all the land, what do you do with all the out buildings that never handled or was never touched by chemical weapons? That's what this is about. We tear down the incinerator, but what do you do with the rest of it?"

Even if chemical weapons no longer are destroyed at Anniston, Williams and Calhoun County Commissioner R.D. Downing say they remain concerned that the facility could be used for destroying other toxic substances.

"As far as I am concerned," said Downing, "this amounts to a broken promise. It is something that I have always expressed concerns about. I think the citizens deserve to know who is pushing this and why they are pushing it."

Williams points to a study done in the 1980s, before the construction of the facility, that found that the incinerator might be used for the destruction of such materials as contaminated soil, industrial hazardous waste, solvents and heavy metals among other things.

Abrams, however, insists this would not be the case.

"Engineers have pointed out a number of times that this facility is not adequate for anything except the destruction of chemical agents," said Abrams. "If someone wants to destroy hospital waste from Atlanta or some other toxic substance, then there are plenty of places around the county to do that."

He went on to say that the only way to destroy toxic substances other than chemical agents at the Anniston facility is to tear it down, rebuild it and get it re-permitted.

"I really don't see that happening," said Abrams.

In a written statement, a spokesman for Sen. Shelby's office, said, "The sole purpose of the incinerator at the ACADF is to destroy the chemical stockpile currently stored there. Sen. Shelby remains strongly opposed to using the incinerator for anything other than that narrow and clear purpose. It will be closed once it serves that purpose. Once closed, it will not support destruction of chemical stockpiles from other states."

Stephen Boyd, a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, said an earlier study the senator had asked for was cancelled once it was discovered to be so similar to the one Shelby had put forward. The idea of the study, however, was the same, to look at future use of the property, not the incinerator.

"To be clear, the study was not intended to look at the possibility of continuing disposal activities at the site," wrote Boyd.

The idea of disposing of other people's problems for a price, however, is appealing to Calhoun County Commissioner Eli Henderson.

"Good for Richard Shelby" said Henderson after being told about the study. "That's a great idea. Why would we go spend a billion dollars on a facility then tear it down? We need to put it to use, burning hospital waste, industrial waste, waste from other places."

Henderson went on to say that he would not object to bringing mustard agent in from other places, saying that if the staff at that incinerator can handle the destruction of nerve agent, that it can handle just about anything.

Asked what such a thing could do to a city that has struggled the last few years to improve its image, Henderson said, "we are in a different time now. We are in a deep recession. We need to find a way of getting our people back to work and generate some income. This is a way to do that."

Downing couldn't disagree more. To him it is all about image and even bringing up the subject tarnishes it.

"This would be the wrong direction for the community to go," said Downing. "Look at the other places around that have decided to be hazardous waste sites, Emelle, Ala., Port Arthur, Texas, what has it done for those places? Nothing. We want to improve the quality of life for the people here, not destroy it."

For her part, Sumners says the study is necessary, not only because it makes common sense, but also because no one in the community has the expertise to complete it.

"We need to put the best minds and researchers available on the task," said Sumners. "For this reason, we have worked for the past few years to get funding for a comprehensive analysis by an independent group of experts to tell us what, if anything, the remaining structures and work force would be suited for. We feel that this is a due diligence process that is in the best interest of both the taxpayer and the local community.

"We do not want to look back in 2012," she concluded, "when everything shuts down and ask ourselves, '"Why didn't we do more?'"

Anniston chemical weapons destruction, by the numbers

To date (since Aug. 9, 2003), the ANCDF Team has processed:

13.4% — of the mustard 4.2-inch mortars

11.6% — of all mustard munitions

100% — of all GE and VX munitions

59.9% — of all munitions

60.0% — of all the agent

396, 661 — number of munitions

309, 877 — gallons of chemical agent