THE BATTLE FOR POISON

By Mark Thompson/Washington

There is a war between the states of Alabama and Missouri, and the prize is poison. The trophy, a low 30,000-sq.-ft. brick building, is surrounded by high fencing topped with barbed wire, surrounded by armed guards and laden with alarms, sirens, cameras and a medical station. Up to 100 soldiers at a time would train there, each repeatedly giving blood samples during their stay to ensure that they were not contaminated by the lethal agents within. These trainees, cloaked in protective overgarments and masks, would detect and swab a bleachlike solution over military gear spotted with deadly droplets. Each week 10 tons of toxic agents and neutralizers would be burned in a 2,200! furnace, spewing what the Army says are harmless emissions from a 75-ft. stack. The toxins to be used at the facility are sarin and VX, among the most virulent chemicals known. While the military would make and store less than a quart of the toxins at any one time, that is enough to kill 850,000 people.

The recent recommendation by the Pentagon to move the world's only known school using lethal nerve agents from Fort McClellan in Alabama to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri has sparked a ferocious public relations battle. As Alabama partisans engage in guerrilla warfare to sabotage the move and keep the facility, Missouri is in such a rush to claim the prize that some of its citizens fear the state is cutting corners and keeping them in the dark.

The squabble began in late February, when the Pentagon told the independent base-closing commission it wants to shutter Fort McClellan's 46,000 acres, nestled in the Appalachian foothills just outside the city of Anniston. Most of its operations, including the military's police and chemical schools, would be sent 350 miles north to Fort Leonard Wood, 63,000 acres of Ozarks wrapped by a national forest and near a few tiny towns.

That prospect dumbfounded Fort McClellan's backers. But they had a strategy. The Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce -- petrified at the impending loss of 10,000 jobs, representing 17% of the region's work force -- hired a Michigan firm to quiz Missourians about their prospective new neighbor. "Missouri said there was no public concern about this, and we decided to take the poll and find out for sure," says chamber official David Sylvester. "We found out that people didn't know it was happening."

At first the 500 Missouri residents polled responded positively to the move until polltakers suggested that an accident there could be more deadly than Times Beach, the Missouri town vacated 12 years ago because of its dioxin-laced soil. Suddenly, the pollsters found opponents outnumbering supporters nearly 2 to 1. Although labeled "privileged and confidential," copies of the $5,000 telephone survey are mysteriously ending up in the hands of reporters and environmentalists in both Alabama and Missouri.

The Democratic legislators from the states -- Representative Glen Browder of Alabama and Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri -- don't see the poll the same way. "Missouri has been giving a sugarcoated version of what's going on and shortcutting the process," Browder says, justifying the survey. He adds, "Our opponents may call it a scare tactic, but we call it an educational effort." Skelton, on the other hand, accuses his neighbors of bamboozlement. "The Alabama folks are like an octopus, trying to emit inky fluid and escape in the confusion."

But some Missourians are leery nonetheless. At a hearing Friday night in Waynesville, a town of 3,400 near the base, they complained about being kept "completely in the dark.'' Wendy Pelton, 43, who lives in an old farmhouse on 38 acres five miles downwind of Fort Leonard Wood with her husband and two young children, objected that no one has adequately explored the potential dangers. "I want reassurance that my family won't spend the next 15 or 30 years on this farm watching our woods -- and our furry, scaled and feathered friends who live there -- sicken and die,'' she said. "We're very concerned about the rush,'' says Kathy Grandfield of the Sierra Club's Ozark chapter. "The people who would be the most directly affected by this facility aren't getting the time to make their views known.''

But most dismiss such concerns. Banker Keith Pritchard told the hearing that the state did a "lengthy and rigorous review'' to ensure their safety. "If it is safe in Alabama, it will be safe in Missouri,'' he said. The state's top environmental official agrees. "The Army has done a damn good job of pollution prevention,'' says David Shorr, director of Missouri's Department of Natural Resources. "If it's so dangerous,'' Skelton wonders, "why do the Alabama folks want to keep it?" Yet if sabotage by pollster doesn't work, Alabama is ready to use blackmail. If McClellan closes, the state will fight Army plans to build a $100 million incinerator to burn 2,500 tons of aging toxins at the nearby Anniston Army Depot. "If the Pentagon wants to take Fort McClellan to Missouri,'' Browder says, "then they can take their chemical garbage with them.''

--With reporting by Hilary Hylton/Austin

With reporting by Hilary Hylton/Austin