VX menace draws to an end for Newport

NEWPORT, Ind. (AP) -- For years, the 1,690 hardened steel containers brimming with the lethal nerve agent VX got no special treatment from the Army.

After VX production ended at the Newport Chemical Depot in 1968, the containers sat in a field, rusting and apparently regarded by the depot's workers as just another part of the scenery.

"They used to eat lunch on top of the containers. We don't do that anymore," said Lt. Col. Joseph Marquart, Newport's commander.

In 1975, with the corrosion worsening, the 6-foot-long tanks were sandblasted, repainted and moved first into the old VX production plant, and then into a warehouse.

They now sit in heavily guarded concrete bunkers built after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- a lethal menace that's safer than ever now that its destruction is looming.

Within a few months, Army contractors will drain the first of the containers as plans to chemically destroy the VX in a large reactor get under way in a sprawling complex built by Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group.

When the project is in full swing, the Pasadena, Calif.-based company will have about 350 employees at the site.

To protect workers and residents, the complex has a closed-air circuit that allows air to enter but none to escape before being heavily filtered. Security cameras keep watch, and air monitoring equipment scans for trouble.

Security personnel in a nearby control center observe all of this activity on computer screens, keeping watch for leaks or accidents.

In case of a VX release, workers carry a VX antidote with them.

Chad Hieronimus, a Parsons worker who will operate the chambers in which the VX tanks will be drained, isn't worried about his safety.

"I think it's going to be perfectly safe. If there was any safety question whatsoever, we wouldn't be here," he said.

Once it's removed, the VX will be chemically neutralized in a steel reactor by adding it over a 36-minute period to a mixture of water and sodium hydroxide heated to about 195 degrees. Two sets of paddles will agitate the mixture for another 2.5 hours to complete the reaction by destroying intermediate compounds.

Two samples will then be taken from the reactor to make sure no VX remains, said Jeff Lindblad, a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency.

Once it is confirmed VX-free, the caustic hydrolysate will be moved into another building on the complex to await loading into tanker trucks for transfer offsite for treatment, or to an onsite holding tank for storage.