for more information contact:
Mick Harrison (859) 321-1586
Craig Williams (859) 986-7565
Hilton Kelly (409) 498-1088
Sara Morgan (765) 498 4472
Ross Vincent (719) 561-3117

EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 Tuesday, October 23, 2007

CITIZEN GROUPS FILE SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION IN FEDERAL COURT TO STOP VX WASTE SHIPMENTS TO TEXAS INCINERATOR
Filing Reveals Army Withheld Viable On-site Treatment Options from the Public and the Court - Documents Turned Over Only After Citizens Get Inside "Tip"

Citizen groups trying to stop the Army from shipping waste from deadly VX nerve agent across eight states to be burned in Port Arthur, Texas have taken legal action again to stop the process, which they claim is illegal and poses serious safety and health hazards. In the Summary Judgment Motion filed today, citizens state that the Army "intentionally withheld critical evidence" from the public and the federal judge hearing their arguments last July.

Subsequent to the judge denying the request for a preliminary injunction to stop the VX hydrolysate (VXH) shipments, anonymous sources revealed that the Army had withheld, both from the public and the court, the fact that extensive efforts had been made to identify viable on-site alternatives to the transportation option and had also kept secret the data resulting from those efforts.

"Withholding information about these activities undermines the very cornerstone of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a federal law requiring open review of alternatives for actions undertaken by the federal government that could have environmental consequences," said Craig Williams, Director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group.

According to today's filing, not only were three alternatives identified as viable, one was actually chosen as the contingency plan should VXH shipment to a DuPont facility in New Jersey be unsuccessful, which it turned out to be. Strong opposition due to public health and environmental impact concerns quashed the DuPont proposal. The motion states, "After the DuPont option failed, the federal defendants abandoned, in secret, the on-site VXH treatment contingency option that had been selected in secret and for which preparations had been made in secret (and paid for by the federal defendants)."

The citizens' motion claims that the undisclosed steps taken by the Army to implement a viable on-site treatment option went so far as to even include preparing environmental permit applications and drafting a NEPA analysis - yet none of this information was made public nor provided to the court.

"It's obvious to us that the Army and their contractors did not want the public or the court to be aware of how far their on-site treatment selection had progressed in order to make their clandestine signing of a contract with an incinerator company almost a thousand miles away appear to be the only workable option," said Williams. "The Army's secret deliberations and their hiding of relevant evidence violate our basic legal and democratic principles and have resulted in a grave injustice to the communities involved."

Among the additional claims contained in the Summary Judgment Motion are the following:

• There was no public notice, review or comment on the decision to ship the waste to Texas;
• The shipment violates U.S. law prohibiting interstate transportation of chemical weapons;
• There are higher VX concentrations in the waste than expected due to valve failures, piping
  configurations and holding tank design flaws at the Newport, Indiana treatment facility;
• The Army failed to consider matters of environmental justice in its decision; and,
• The Army failed to provide adequate monitoring or response capability for VX agent releases.

Although some of these points were raised during the preliminary injunction hearing in which the judge found for the Army, the plaintiffs believe that new information including but not limited to on-site treatment capabilities, previously hidden from the court, along with additional arguments on the merits of the claims will result in a favorable finding during this procedure.

Meanwhile, plaintiffs have been insisting the EPA review the methods used by the Army to determine the toxicity of the VXH waste being sent to Port Arthur for incineration, claiming that the current methods are not in compliance with EPA requirements. If the EPA don't do a thorough investigation, plaintiffs in this case will consider bringing suit to force that issue as well.

Since the shipments began last April, citizen plaintiffs have contended that there are higher concentrations of deadly VX and other lethal chemicals in the materials than the Army is acknowledging.

Mick Harrison, attorney for plaintiffs, stated that: "The new evidence presented in this motion shows, disturbingly, that the Army made a conscious choice to disregard the clear Congressional mandate that the public be meaningfully involved in the analysis federal agencies are required to conduct under NEPA of alternative courses of action and their environmental consequences. The Army, however, is not above the law."

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Copies of the Summary Judgment Motion are available upon request from the CWWG office.