I read about this story today and was entirely outraged. It seems that as of tomorrow, the US military will begin incierating cold war era chemical weapons right in the middle of Anniston Alabama!
Now, to be fair, the citizens
:rolleyes:
Now come the fuck on! What in the world could posess any rational human being to think that it would be ok to release incinerated sarin gas into the air where 110,000 people live!?
As the article states, a coalition of environmental groups have put this to court, but have not suceeded. This seems to me to be one of the most horrendous injustices the the US Gov has inflicted upon its people since I can remember.
It appears the 750 jobs generated are more important than the health and safety of 110,000 immediate inhabitants, not counting the population centers of Atlanta, GA, and Birmingham, AL, about 100 miles away.
Then again, poisonous substances, and the abuses of them, seem to run hand in hand in the community.
<irony=on>
Perhaps there is a belief they are already contaminated. What’s one more contamination?
</irony>
Considering it took some time to build the $1 billion incinerator, why haven’t the major media outlets run the story at all, let alone in the past few months running up to this start date? One might surmise it won’t become newsworthy until the protests start and/or something goes horribly wrong. Then again, any adverse military publicity might be another stain upon the White House.
Are they incinerating just the WMD, or all the plans for making it too. Because, otherwise, some unscrupulous governement could accuse them of still having an WMD “programme”
IIRC, often when something is incinerated it changes chemical composition. So, I doubt if it’s the equivalent of releasing sarin gas.
That said, I don’t know what the byproducts of thie sort of combustion are. It would be handy to see some of the science behind it. There maybe recycling of exhaust back through the incinerator as a precautionary measure.
I think thta many things break down to the component N, C, H, and O. I don’t know what’s in the substances that;re being burnt here though.
I must be missing something here, but what exactly is the problem?
Is it NIMBYism? Is it the resultant pollution? How would the pollution differ from that produced every day by burning fossil fules? Is the assumption that because these are chemical weapons, then the combustion products will have related toxicity? Local people should have been informed that this is simply not the case (although I assume careful monitoring of the products will take place, to ensure complete combustion). Is it about the storage of the weapons? Again, one has to assume that this has been considered and if they were unstable, would not be transported to the area and/or treated appropriately (safe containment, then incinerate)
Is it not safe to assume that the Army would have considered the fact that if the the incinerator were to kill thousands of people in the surrouding area, we’d be likely to find out ?
I just hope no barrels get kicked over from all the knee-jerking.
This story calls for concern and close monitoring, not outrage. And the chemicals have to be destroyed sooner or later, and waiting until later just increases the chance of an accidental release, with unpredictable results.
I heartily agree, but wouldn’t it be a little safer to use the chemical neutralization process mentioned in the original cite. Or, if incineration is what they want to do, do it somewhere that isn’t right in the middle of a populted area. The fact that the government has already issued protective gear to these people makes me think that some types of dangerous substances will be released by the burning. Granted, this probably won’t kill anyone, yet. But since this is a first, we don’t know what the long term environmental consequences will be (and given the Bush administrations limp wristed stance on environmental ethics I doubt that this was a concern at all).
Tricky. I suppose there are three main approaches:
[ul][li]Take the gas barrels out to the desert somewhere and bury them, at minimal expense. No humans get hurt (well, maybe some Navaho kids get lukemia or something) but that part of the desert is poisoned forever.[/li][li]Build incinerator in isolated area. Expensive, and the facility has no useful purpose after the project is complete. Granted the Feds could pay for it by buying one fewer B2 bomber.[/li][li]Build incinerator in or near populated area. Give jobs to locals, stimulate local economy, leave locals with incinerator they can use in future for conventional garbage. It may turn out that this is the best option economically and ecologically, though it’s a shame that cold-war paranoia created this problem in the first place.[/ul][/li]
Will be, I don’t know. Might be, I grant you. Since when does taking precautions suggest guilt? You may as well accuse someone of being an arsonist if he installs sprinklers.
[sub]Of course, all those strawmen are something of a fire hazard…[/sub]
The chemical neutralization process sounds like a good option, but I don’t know about moving the weapons to another location to destroy them. 2000 tons is a lot of truckloads of weapons to move through a populated area - the risk in transporting the weapons is not negligible, and may be greater than the risk inherent in the proposed incineration. Put simply, the more you handle something, the more likely it is that you’ll drop it at least once.
The chemical neutralization process was described in the article as an “upgrade” to the incineration facility. Upgrades cost money, and that money would have to be justified by an appropriate increase in public safety. I agree with Bryan Ekers that it’s a situation that “calls for concern and close monitoring, not outrage.”.
I seem to remember that an incineration facility has already been biult on Jonston(sp?) atoll, way the hell out in the middle of the pacific ocean, about as far from anywhere as one could go. This site was built for the express purpose of incinerating chemical weapons. Dunno why they don’t just ship the stuff there.
As** SimonX** has said, incineration is a damn fine way of destroying, well, just about any organic chemical. I can’t give you specifics on how much is destroyed, or the final composition coming out of the chimney, but it’s pretty damn safe. Well, safe after that. Having large numbers of barrels filled with chemical agents is inherently unsafe, which is probably why the Jonston atoll facility is sited where it is.
Turns out that the Johnston atoll facility finished its work in 2000 and is supposed to be slated for dismantling (after which it would serve as a wildlife refuge-so much for death and destruction)
IIRC, the chemical weapons are being destroyed on-site – at Anniston and about a half-dozen locations around the US – because the risk of moving thousands of tons of chemical weapons by truck, train, or plane was judged as being too great.
After all, you’ve got people who didn’t even want plain ol’ napalm moved through their states. Can you imagine how goddamned hard it would be to move huge amounts of VX across the country?
