Lawmakers protest plan to dispose of nerve agent in New Jersey

Associated Press

July 28, 2006

WASHINGTON New Jersey lawmakers are still protesting a plan to dispose of a deadly nerve agent in the Garden State.

The Army has been given the go-ahead by federal health officials to destroy the VX nerve agent in Indiana and truck its byproduct to New Jersey. But two New Jersey congressmen say the CDC has not definitively said the plan is sound.

Democrat Bob Andrews said the Centers for Disease Control endorsed the plan only on "the rosiest of scenarios."

The Army last year began neutralizing the original stockpile of more than 250-thousand gallons of Cold War-era chemical. A single drop of VX can kill.

The plan remains on hold until the investigative arm of Congress finishes a study examining the entire operation.