for more information contact:
Sara Morgan: (765) 498-4472
Craig Williams: (606) 986-7565
for immediate release: Monday, February 22, 1999
NON-INCINERATION CHEM. WEAPONS DISPOSAL CONTRACT AWARDED IN INDIANA;
Hoosier Citizens Urge Adoption of Safer Technologies Across U.S.
While their allies across the nation have filed multiple lawsuits against Army plans to build incinerators to destroy the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile, Indiana activists are praising the recent award of a contract to dispose of agent stored at the Newport Army Depot using a non-smokestack technology. Hoosier community groups are also urging federal policy-makers to adopt similar, environmentally benign destruction methods at other sites.
Citizens Against Incineration at Newport (CAIN) and the Newport Study Group, long-time members of the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a national coalition opposing incineration as a disposal method, welcomed the contract award and vowed to continue cooperating with Army and state regulators to see the job gets done properly. The Newport contract calls for destroying the almost three million pounds of dangerous agent by neutralization followed by secondary oxidation treatment .
At other sites where chemical weapons are slated to be destroyed, however, the CWWG and its affiliate organizations continue to challenge incineration plans as "a dangerous open-ended technology, guaranteed to expose civilians to warfare agent." The latest anti-incineration legal action was filed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, earlier this month. Similar suits are ongoing in Utah, Alabama, and Oregon.
Sara Morgan, a spokesperson for CAIN, explained, "We have all worked hard to ensure the safest disposal method is used in Indiana and are pleased that incineration was abandoned here. But we are equally committed to seeing that this dangerous technology is stopped at all other sites. We are not giving up helping other communities just because we've achieved our goals in Indiana."
The contrast between locations where incineration has been abandoned, Maryland and Indiana, and the sites where incinerators are operating or under construction is unmistakable. In Utah, the Sierra Club, the CWWG, and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation have brought Federal and state court lawsuits against the Army and the incinerator operators, EG&G Defense Materials, Inc. In Oregon, Alabama and Arkansas more than a dozen groups have filed legal challenges to the Army's plans to burn chemical weapons. A Georgia organization has also sued to stop the Alabama facility, charging that emissions of chemical weapons agents and other toxic material from incinerator smokestacks will drift across the state line and impact their health and environment.
In Maryland, activist groups which had blocked incineration proposals are now cooperating with plans to implement a safer agent destruction technology at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. A state permit for a chemical weapons neutralization facility is expected to be issued in the near future. No legal challenges are expected.
At the remaining two sites, Kentucky and Colorado, Congress has put a moratorium on incineration construction while the Pentagon demonstrates alternative treatment approaches. CWWG member groups in the surrounding communities support this effort and are committed to helping expedite the permitting process once suitable disposal technologies are identified.
"The issue is not 'if' we should dispose of these agents," said CWWG national spokesman Craig Williams. "Rather the controversy is over how to do so while protecting the public. We all want to get rid of these weapons, but we insist on methods that won't pump toxic emissions into our communities."
Williams continued, "Progress in Indiana and Maryland demonstrates that community activists will back up their rhetoric with action to support safer chemical weapons destruction technologies. We aggressively support the disposal efforts there and endorse the alternative research programs applicable to Kentucky and Colorado."
"But," Williams concluded, "we are just as committed to stopping incineration elsewhere through every legal action at our disposal. Unfortunately the Army remains inflexible at other sites. Their stubborn support of a dangerous, outmoded technology wastes billions in taxpayer money and continues to delay the date by which all chemical weapon agent will be safely destroyed."
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