PORT ARTHUR, Texas -- A small group of opponents vowed Saturday to continue their fight to stop nerve agent waste from being shipped into Port Arthur from Indiana and incinerated at a local plant.

"What are we going to do? Just stand back and lay back? No, we aren't going to do that," Warren Field, who grew up in the southeast Texas community, said during a rally.

Since April, a plant in Port Arthur has been incinerating thousands of gallons of VX hydrolysate, caustic wastewater that is a byproduct of the destruction of the deadly nerve agent VX.

The Army is destroying its entire supply of the Cold War-era nerve agent VX, which can kill with a single drop, at the Newport Chemical Depot, a government-owned facility in western Indiana.

The wastewater is being shipped nearly 1,000 miles away to Port Arthur.

Under a contract, Illinois-based Veolia Environmental Services will burn about 2 million gallons of the chemical waster over the next three years at its Port Arthur facility.

Veolia has tried to calm fears by saying that it is only bringing in wastewater, not a deadly nerve agent, and that is has the proper permits, training and facilities to handle it.

But Hilton Kelley, director of the Community In-Power Development Association, said he doesn't believe claims that there aren't dangerous levels of VX in the wastewater.

As Kelley spoke at a rally attended by nearly 30 people, the landscape behind him was dotted with chemical plants.

Jefferson County, where Port Arthur is located, is home to one of the country's biggest chemical-industrial complexes and has been ranked in the top 10 percent of America's dirtiest counties by the Environmental Defense Fund.

"Port Arthur is disproportionately burdened by toxic waste," Kelley said. "We do not need any more toxic waste to come to Port Arthur."

New Jersey and Ohio fought off plans to incinerate the waste there. Army and Port Arthur city officials did not announce the project until the deal was done.

A spokesman for Veolia did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment on Saturday.

Field, a retired engineer who used to work at chemical plants in Houston and Los Angeles, said he was concerned about the low turnout at the rally, which also included a short march to a local church.

"We need to motivate and educate people that this is affecting them," he said.

Environmental activists have sued to try to stop the shipments, but a federal judge in Indiana this summer ruled against them.

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, which has been working in Indiana to stop the shipments, said activists plan to go back to court with new information they claim shows officials can't tell how much VX is actually in the wastewater.

Efforts this summer by activists to have Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, stop the shipments were unsuccessful.