THE BATTLE FOR POISON

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.