The Nerve
by John Dale Butwell

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Spin can really distort the cold, hard facts sometimes, even though it may mean the difference between a news story that's followed and one that isn't.

An ongoing story really needs a "spin" when it's dragged on for decades, like the debate over destroying the M-55 rockets full of nerve agents stored in igloos at the Bluegrass Army Depot between Berea and Richmond.

Even the bumper stickers you frequently see in Madison County, "Nerve gas incinerator-it's dead wrong," are old and tattered.

When Berea incineration opponent Craig Williams first started fighting the Army and its plans, he was carrying his son Dustin on his hip. "He's 6-foot-4 now," Williams quips.

Many are weary of this issue.

But the spin everyone seems to be taking on the latest news on destroying the nerve agents in our midst is so overly optimistic, I feel compelled to yammer about it again.

Lexington news writers, editorialists, and even incineration opponents themselves are taking it as "good news" that the Army is looking at three alternative ways to destroy the nerve agents, AS WELL AS incineration.

As well as. In addition to. But not "instead of."

Incineration, my friends, has NOT BEEN RULED OUT.

Until the Army says no way will it burn nerve agents and release the fumes into the air of heavily-populated Madison County, which is growing minute by minute, subdivision by subdivision, we can't breathe easy.

I don't care which alternative "closed loop" technology the Army chooses, just so it doesn't have the potential to release nerve agents or the poisonous byproducts of burning them-including heavy metals and dioxin-into Kentucky air.

Although all counties surrounding Madison could be affected, from teeming, urban Fayette to easygoing, rural Jackson-the counties most endangered are Clark and Estill, since the prevailing winds blow their way most of the time.

Ironically, like Johnstown before the flood, few Clark and Estill residents seem concerned about their imminent peril.

Instead in southern Madison's Berea-not downwind from the igloos-we have Mayor Clifford Kerby demanding that the stuff be burned,.

Berea is the kind of town which elects good mayors and sticks with them. It has only had three in its 100-plus years of existence. I went to high school with the mayor's daughters, and I like him okay. But on this issue he's wrong.

As I read his quotes in the newspaper, I can hear his croaking voice chuckling quietly at the dry humor in his comments, just like it does when he rides herd on his city council.

And I can hear the denial in his logic, just like he uses when-as a medical doctor-he argues that the cigarettes he chain-smokes can't really be that bad for you.

Kerby argues in favor of safe incineration, based on that studies conducted at Johnson Atoll and Tooele, Utah (although he fails to mention the repeated agent leaks at both incinerators).

"The fish are all fine; the birds aren't glowing in the dark; they didn't kill a single person," Kerby is quoted as saying. Even he admits that other processes could work, too, however, and those would be fine with him.

I wouldn't want to go overboard and suggest that the thousands of dollars his city has received in "emergency response" money from the Army might be influencing the mayor's views. But there IS that possibility.

Maybe it's just that Kerby, who was born in traditionally jobless Jackson County's Clover Bottom community, feels loyalty and gratitude for the Army for employing his late father Lloyd at the Bluegrass Army Depot over the years. Or maybe like the rest of us, he's just scared.

He's frequently acknowledged there could be "dangers" in any process, but insists that waiting is more dangerous.

Richmond Mayor Ann Durham has agreed, widely cited as saying, " It's time to get on with it."

Madison County Judge-Executive Kent Clark, meanwhile-the one with the Superman name-is adopting a "wait-and-see" attitude, considering all the alternatives. And incineration opponents claim alternative technologies may actually be quicker to implement than incineration.

It's simply wrong to imply the activists held things up.

They deserve part of the blame/credit, no doubt. But so does the Army for keeping the entire nerve-agent destruction program behind schedule for decades; for keeping the public suspicious of the Army itself by repeated deception; and for being too bull-headed to look at other options for many years.

If incineration opponents have made a career, and their livings, out of fighting the Army's plans-someone had to. In fact, a nationwide coalition against incineration had to be formed to give opponents any clout. I thank them for it. They're my heroes.

Williams' critics tend to be incinerator supporters, the Vietnam veteran and former Jackson County cabinet maker points out. "That's the common denominator," he says. "If they don't like what I'm doing, then everything I'm doing they don't like."

Nerve agent is stored in bulk at some sites, and is part of munitions at others. Recently, the Army chose chemical neutralization at its munitions site in Pueblo, CO-which was the Army's first such choice at a munitions site.

Naturally, that gave Williams (and the rest of us) some hope that this would pave the way.

In one way, Russia is ahead of the United States as it tries to destroy its own nerve-agent stockpiles using chemical neutralization. Incineration was purportedly rejected as an option.

I'm waiting to see what happens here. But I'm not holding my breath.

Nerve gas incineration was covered regularly by Ace in the 90s (see www.aceweekly.com, archives).

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