Army: Chemical weapons incineration on track

[unhappycamper]

Army: Chemical weapons incineration on track
By Jay Reeves - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 5, 2008 7:33:10 EDT

ANNISTON, Ala. — When the Army began building incinerators to destroy tons of deadly chemical weapons, many feared the worst — they protested, sued, demanded gas masks for nearby residents and raised the specter of exposure to deadly exhaust.

But now more than half the nation’s aging cache of 31,500 tons of nerve agents and mustard gas has been burned or chemically neutralized at seven sites with no major accidents in the 18 years since the program began.

In eastern Alabama, Joyce Walker says she and her husband sleep well at night, a few miles away from Anniston Army Depot, where 2,254 tons of chemical munitions were stored for decades in dirt-covered concrete bunkers.

“I’ll be glad when it’s gone, but I don’t think about it very much,” Walker said.

Like many people around here, she hasn’t opened the safety gear meant to save her life in the worst-case scenario considered by officials: A large explosion, like one caused by an airliner crashing into a bunker, creating a cloud of lethal nerve agent that could drift for several miles.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/ap_army_chemicalweapons_060408/



uhc comment: Oh Happy Days! We only have another 15,750 tons of the stuff to get rid of.