Afraid to Keep It, Afraid to Burn It

[donsu]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uschem043402921aug05,0,7548216.story

Anniston, Ala. - She never knows when the seizures will come. Perhaps in mid-sentence, as she is describing the warm, windy morning eight years ago when the first one struck, turning her lively face into a twisted, frozen mask. Perhaps as she talks about the toxic vapors that were leaking from the nearby Army depot that morning, vapors she's convinced caused the mysterious ailment. Perhaps if a whiff of something triggers a reaction to whatever haunts her system.

All Arametta Porter knows is that the seizures will come and that several times a day a tingling sensation will creep across her face, like worms crawling under the skin. Then the left side of her mouth will be stretched back to her ear. Her eyes will squeeze shut, and odd chirping sounds will come from her distorted lips. It will last anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours.

Like many in this eastern Alabama town, Porter, a 55-year-old retired biology teacher, lived for decades within a few miles of the Army depot, unaware it housed 2,254 tons of rockets, mines and other weapons loaded with deadly nerve agents like GB and VX and blistering mustard. Like many here, she wasn't too worried when the weapons' existence became common knowledge after the Cold War. After all, she reasoned, they had been stashed there since the 1960s without a problem.

Her attitude changed after the seizures began, and now, as the Army prepares to burn the stash - tomorrow is the targeted start date for the years-long project - Porter is among those growing increasingly angry and fearful. "I feel betrayed as an American citizen," said Porter, who questions the government's priorities as it searches for chemical weapons in Iraq. "If they went way over there looking for something they haven't found and wanted to protect the Iraqi people, why in the world aren't they protecting the people right here?"
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Where are the lawyers?