Chemical weapons incinerator makes some Alabamans jittery

ANNISTON, Ala. — There are few residents of Calhoun County's mountain ridges who don't know, to the 10 of a mile, how far they live from the smokestacks of the Army's towering new incinerator, which in several months is to begin destroying thousands of tons of the deadliest chemicals ever devised.

People here have been told that a shrill whoop-whoop is the most serious of several public-address siren tones, signaling a toxic leak of nerve, VX or mustard gas. They have been shown how to operate government-issued alert radios designed to awaken them should a catastrophe occur. And the 35,000 people who live too close to the incinerator to be evacuated after an accident are being issued plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal their windows and doors. Local officials, leery of the duct-tape approach, are pressing the federal government to distribute 35,000 protective hoods, too.

For 40 years, people here have shared eastern Alabama's piedmont with 2,254 tons of lethal chemicals, packed in aging rockets and mortars and sealed in reinforced concrete bunkers, known as igloos, at the Anniston Army Depot. Most have uneasily come to terms with the slim possibility of a chemical disaster as a trade-off for the military's strong economic presence in the area.

But now that the Army is getting ready to burn those chemicals, there is a heightened sense of concern among many of the 75,000 people who live within 10 miles of the depot. The $1 billion incinerator is to begin destroying the munitions and their contents next April, and many residents and local officials say they are profoundly worried about the safety of the procedure and the federal government's preparedness for an accident.

Anniston stores only 7 percent of the nation's chemical stockpile, but it is the most populous of the eight sites, including the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Tooele County, around the country where chemical weapons are being stored or destroyed. Aware that its actions here will profoundly affect the future of the nation's $14 billion disposal program, the Army is working hard to reassure the public that incineration is far safer than continued storage of the old weapons.

Government officials acknowledge now that more than 800 of the mortars and M-55 rockets in the igloos have actually leaked minuscule amounts of deadly nerve gas, and have even distributed pictures of the aging shells to demonstrate the urgent need for disposal.