CHESTERTOWN -- For long-time Kent County residents such as Walter Harris, it's one thing to grow accustomed to the window-rattling noise of routine munitions tests across Chesapeake Bay at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County.
But it's another thing altogether to consider even a slim chance that a silent but poisonous cloud of chemicals could drift across the three miles of water separating APG from the Eastern Shore and touch down in Kent County.
As part of a congressional order to destroy an estimated 30,000 tons of obsolete mustard and nerve agents once considered crucial to the nation's weapons arsenal, the U.S. Army is planning to build a network of incinerators to burn the chemicals at eight government-owned locations -- including APG.
While the plan was long opposed by many Harford Countians who live near APG, residents of Kent County seem to have awakened recently to the fact that they live downwind of the 40-year-old stockpile.
"Aberdeen is no stranger to us," said Mr. Harris, one of the Eastern Shore's earliest and most vocal opponents of the incineration plan.
"We've had cracked window panes and windows put out of their tracks by the noise. We're not complaining about that," he said. "But we're not going to put up with this incinerator. This is just incredible."
So incredible to some Kent County residents, in fact, that organizers of a daylong symposium at Washington College tomorrow on the incinerator proposal are wondering whether the school's 600-seat theater is big enough for the expected turnout.
The meeting, which will feature appearances by Army and state officials, environmentalists and Kentucky residents fighting a similar incinerator there, has been promoted with posters depicting a wide-eyed child wearing a gas mask and clutching a Teddy bear.
Despite assurances from the Army's chemical experts that an accident involving mustard is highly unlikely -- and if one did happen the odds of it affecting Kent County are even more remote -- residents here are unconvinced.
Incinerator opponents received a major boost this week when the three-member Kent County Commission voted unanimously to join the fight against the Army plan.
"We reject the notion that any benefit -- be it economical, technological, environmental or political -- could be derived from the incineration of mustard agent," the commission said in a resolution.
And, in a move designed to erase any doubts about what side they were on, county officials announced they would no longer accept federal funds for drafting a local emergency plan to handle any accidents involving APG's existing mustard agent stockpile.
Instead, those Kent officials said, they will spend their own money to prepare evacuation plans or other protective measures.
Army studies have concluded that a serious chemical leak or spill at APG could affect humans and animals within an 11-mile radius of an incinerator.
Mustard agent is a liquid that freezes when the temperature falls below 58 degrees. Upon contact, it blisters the skin and eyes and burns the respiratory system. Unlike newer chemical agents, mustard can linger in an area for months without breaking down chemically.
Army officials insist that no final decision has been made to build an incinerator at Aberdeen.
A 1988 study concluded that on-site incineration was the safest way of disposing of all the chemical agents and weapons stockpiled throughout the United States, but a "site-specific" environmental study is under way now to see if that conclusion still holds for the Aberdeen stockpile, according to Charles Baronian, the Army's technical director and deputy program manager for chemical demilitarization.
Opponents of incineration contend that the Army needs to look at alternative methods of disposal, such as treating mustard with chemicals to neutralize it. They question the government's "rush to burn." Others say that stockpiles in heavily populated areas such as Aberdeen ought to be shipped to remote areas for disposal, where an accident would put fewer people at risk.
The Army has been testing a $550 million chemical weapons disposal plant on Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, about 800 miles southwest of Hawaii. Another plant is under construction at Tooele, Utah.
Even if mustard from Aberdeen could be shipped safely to either plant, there is intense political opposition in both places to taking outside materials, said Mr. Baronian.
Incineration has been shown to be a safe method of disposing of chemical agents, Mr. Baronian contended, noting that in the early 1970s the Army burned mustard without incident at Rocky Mountain Arsenal on the outskirts of Denver.
But Peter Montague, research director with the Environmental Research Foundation in Washington, argued that there are still many unknowns about the environmental impact of incinerating the chemical weapons. He noted that the Chesapeake Bay already is degraded, and he contended that burning mustard will produce toxic byproducts related to dioxin.
Pat Costner, a chemist with Greenpeace, said that hazardous waste incinerators are problem-riddled, and that test burns of nerve agent at the Pacific incinerator have resulted in repeated breakdowns. In one case, nerve agent was detected coming out of the smokestack, she said.
Mr. Baronian acknowledged there have been problems with the Johnston Island plant, but he said most were related to destruction of chemical weapons armed with explosives and nerve agents. The mustard at Aberdeen is not stored in weapons, but in large tanks, so will be easier to destroy, he said.
The Army's 1988 study found a greater chance of an accidental release of mustard if the chemicals continue to be stockpiled at Aberdeen than if they are incinerated, Mr. Baronian noted. The chance of a leak during burning is said to be only 1 in 10,000 to 100,000, compared with a 1 in 100 to 1,000 chance of an accidental leak from the storage yard over the next 25 years.
If studies bear out the Army's decision to go ahead with an incinerator, plans call for construction to begin in January 1995. The 1,500 tons of mustard would be burned over a 12-month period beginning in January 1998, said Marilyn Tischbin, spokeswoman for the Army's chemical-demilitarization program.
Before an incinerator can be built, the Army will need permits from the state. Robert Perciasepe, Maryland secretary of the environment, says his agency will review the Army's application when it is submitted, possibly later this year.
If Mr. Harris, whose 350-acre farm along the shore facing APG has been in his family for four generations, reveals a proprietary side to his opposition, he's not the first one in rural Kent County to do so.
One of the state's smallest and least populated counties -- its 17,800 residents would not fill even half the seats at the new Oriole Park at Camden Yards -- Kent County has built a reputation as looking upon intruders with a stern eye.
County residents chased away the British during the War of 1812. They defeated an early plan to have a bay bridge link Baltimore with their shoreline. They buried a proposal in the 1970s to build a nuclear power plant near Betteron Beach. And just four years ago public outcry forced the county's officials to scrap their own proposal to let a private firm erect an incinerator to deal with the local trash problem.
Although it has had a familiar coalescing impact on the county, the proposed Army incinerator project touches more than parochial hot spots, according to community leaders.
"As far as I'm concerned, this comes down to the people versus the government," said Robert Hukill, a Worton resident who has been coordinating opposition efforts among a dozen or so civic groups.
"This is the first issue that goes beyond the county boundaries and puts us up against the U.S. Army and the government," said Mary Walkup, a former county commissioner who currently heads the 22-year-old watchdog organization Kent Conservation Inc.
Mr. Hukill said he hoped tomorrow's symposium would provide area residents with "a big-picture perspective of why we even have this problem." With that accomplished, he said, incinerator opponents can focus their energies on getting the attention of elected officials and bureaucrats in Washington.
Anti-incinerator activists here are relying on conventional means to spread the word about the Army plan. Display ads appear in a weekly newspaper along with letters to the editor, and movement leaders meet often with established civic groups to curry their support.
Costs of running the campaign are low because most of the work is performed by volunteers, said Mrs. Walkup.
While the Army's announced its decision in 1988 to dispose of its chemical weapons by building an incinerator for each stockpile, it was not until regional protection and emergency evacuation plans were being drafted late last year that public sentiment was aroused.
Emergency plans include installing warning sirens around the stockpile and on the Chesapeake Bay to warn of an accidental leak. Residents also would be taught to seal off a portion of their homes to prevent a chemical incursion, and some nearby schools may be "over-pressurized" so that airborne mustard agent could not enter the buildings.
So far, organization leaders have had moderate results in their efforts to enlist political support outside the county. State legislators, who have been struggling with unfinished budget problems, should come aboard when they finish their work in Annapolis, said Mr. Hukill.
And sources in the administration of Gov. William Donald Schaefer said the governor has left undecided his position on the issue because he may want to examine the economic benefits that construction of an incinerator could bring to Harford County.
Elected officials are taking note of the local opposition.
Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, R-1st, who is scheduled to appear on tomorrow's panel, already has said other methods of disposing the mustard agent should be examined before an incinerator is built.
Rep. Tom McMillen, D-4th, who is Mr. Gilchrest's challenger in the upcoming congressional race for the 1st District seat, has thrown his support behind an effort to modify a Senate bill that would exclude states from regulating defense waste disposal.