Government agrees to pay for gas masks for public near Alabama incinerator

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Posted 2:00PM on Thursday, March 28, 2002

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The federal government will pay for gas mask-like safety gear for thousands of people who live near an incinerator where the Army will burn deadly nerve agents, officials said Wednesday. As many as 35,000 people in eastern Alabama could receive the protective hoods and training. FEMA said no money would be released until the state provided a plan for purchasing and maintaining the hoods, and for training people to use them. The agency said many details had to be worked out. The deal laid the groundwork for what could be the first mass distribution of such safety gear to civilians on U.S. soil. State and federal emergency management officials said they were unaware of any such previous effort. Gov. Don Siegelman's office said the hoods would be distributed under an agreement reached in Siegelman's lawsuit over the chemical weapons incinerator at the Anniston Army Depot, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied the agreement was linked to the lawsuit. Siegelman spokesman Rip Andrews said the state would withdraw its request that a judge block the opening of the incinerator in return for the government's pledge to provide $7 million for the gear and training. Siegelman filed suit last month to halt operation of the $1 billion incinerator. The protective hoods, which function like gas masks but are larger and simpler to use, would be given to people who live nearest the incinerator. The money would also be used to purchase gear for as many as 500 police, firefighters and emergency management workers who would respond to any accident at the incinerator, said Mike Burney, emergency management director for Calhoun County. An estimated 75,000 people live within about nine miles of the incinerator, situated about 60 miles east of Birmingham. "Even a small accident could be catastrophic," Burney said. While the military has destroyed aging nerve agents at incinerators in the Pacific and the Utah desert, the Anniston installation is the first to be located in a populated area. The Army plans to begin test burns of nerve gas in September.