VX destruction resumes in second Newport reactor

RICK CALLAHAN
Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS - Army contractors on Friday restarted the second of two chemical reactors built to destroy western Indiana's deadly nerve agent stockpile, returning both reactors to operation for the first time since an October spill.

The depot's Reactor 2 was restarted about 6:50 a.m. EST, some three weeks after Reactor 1 was reactivated following upgrades, said Jeff Brubaker, the Army's depot on-site manager.

On Oct. 29, about 490 gallons of a caustic wastewater called hydrolysate spilled from Reactor 1, halting all operations. Workers fixed the culprit, found to be degraded gaskets, by replacing dozens of them in each reactor with superior Teflon and stainless steel gaskets.

"We now have both reactors operating concurrently for the first time since the end of October, so that's certainly a very positive accomplishment," Brubaker said.

With the latest setback behind them, he said Army contractor Parsons Technology Inc. now hopes to make steady progress boosting the amount of VX nerve agent the complex destroys daily.

By late January, he said the goal is for the complex to be chemically neutralizing about 720 gallons of VX a day - about twice the current amount.

The project, which began in May, was halted in June after an earlier leak. It resumed in late August after diaphragm material in valves was replaced with ball-bearing systems.

Brubaker said the Army's contractor now hopes to move ahead with efforts to achieve a peak VX processing rate at the complex.

The depot about 30 miles north of Terre Haute holds a stockpile of more than 250,000 gallons of VX, which is so deadly that a tiny droplet can kill a person in minutes.

As of Friday, 8,772 gallons of the agent had been destroyed, creating 48,257 gallons of hydrolysate, a wastewater the Army has compared to liquid drain cleaner.

That hydrolysate now fills 13 4,000-gallon intermodal tanks at the depot, which has another 27 of the huge tanks on hand as more of the wastewater is created as the VX is destroyed by being mixed with heated water and sodium hydroxide.

Brubaker said that once the complex reaches its peak processing rate, between 20 and 25 additional tanks will be needed each month for the growing amount of hydrolysate.

The Army wants to ship Newport's hydrolysate to a DuPont Inc. plant in New Jersey for treatment and disposal in the Delaware River. But that plan has generated strong opposition in both New Jersey and Delaware.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is studying DuPont's proposed method for treating the hydrolysate, which is being stored at Newport as it is produced.

Under the Chemical Weapons Convention international treaty, chemical weapons stockpiles at all U.S. facilities must be destroyed by April 2007, although the treaty permits for the deadline to be extended once to 2012.

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky., said problems and delays have plagued all of the nation's chemical weapons disposal complexes. He said the most problematic sites have been at facilities where the military is incinerating chemical agents used in munitions such as land mines.

"The Newport task is extremely simple in comparison. The challenge at Newport has to do with the agent they're working with - it's difficult to deal with, it's very lethal," he said.