Incinerator Shut After Chemical Detected

The Army temporarily shut down a chemical weapons incinerator in Alabama on Thursday after an alarm detected what the Army said were minute traces of a chemical agent in an observation corridor.

Officials did not identify the substance but said there had been no threat to the $1-billion facility, which destroys deadly nerve agents such as sarin, or to the surrounding community.

“No one at the site was injured,” said Timothy Garrett, the site’s project manager. “I also want to state emphatically that the community and the environment was not and is not endangered following today’s agent alarm.”

The incinerator is in the northeastern Alabama town of Anniston and less than 100 miles from the heavily populated cities of Atlanta and Birmingham. About 110,000 people live within 30 miles.

Garrett added that some personnel had donned protective masks as a precaution after the alarm went off.

The Army, complying with an international treaty, began burning chemical weapons, including M-55 rockets containing sarin, at the facility last year.

The decision to burn weapons at the Anniston depot triggered protests from environmentalists and residents. Critics said the plan posed a significant hazard to residents and property.

About 2,000 tons of rockets, artillery shells and land mines containing sarin, VX and other nerve agents were at the depot before the burning started Aug. 9.

The stockpile accounted for about 6% of the U.S. chemical weapons that must be destroyed by 2007 under the treaty.