Hightower Lowdown

Say you live next to a plant that announces it’s going to burn tons of deadly nerve gas, but the men in charge tell you not to worry, because if anything “unfortunate” were to happen, they’d give you an eight-minute warning, some plastic sheeting, and a roll of duct tape so you could seal up your house. You’d think: “Is this a Three Stooges routine?”
Unfortunately, instead of Curly, Larry, and Moe, this is the work of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Anniston, AL. The Army brass plans to burn more than 2,200 tons of chemical weapons at its billion-dollar incinerator there during the next seven years. The facility is smack in the middle of schools, day-care centers, nursing homes, and houses, with 35,000 people living within nine miles.
If anything goes wrong, says the Army, folks should simply flee—or, indeed, seal up one of their rooms with plastic and duct tape and wait for the toxic cloud to dissipate. Yet the Army has balked at spending money even to provide the tape or any other protection for the locals: “[T]he incinerator should not be burdened with the safety of the community,” barked a spokesman, insisting that it poses no threat.
Hello? Even if no accidents occur, the process itself releases PCBs, dioxin, lead, mercury, and other toxins into the atmosphere.
To learn what you can do, call the Chemical Weapons Working Group at 606-986-7565.