AP New Jersey
Nerve agent destruction halted after
VX wastewater spill
March
15, 2006, 9:35 AM EST
NEWPORT, Ind. -- An Army contractor halted destruction
of western Indiana's deadly nerve agent stockpile after about 300 gallons
of a wastewater spilled at the complex built to destroy the Cold War-era
chemical weapon.
Investigators hope to determine sometime Wednesday a preliminary cause of
the spill, which is the fourth at the Newport Chemical Depot since destruction
of the VX nerve agent began last May, depot spokeswoman Terry Arthur said
Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday afternoon, about 300 gallons of a caustic wastewater called
hydrolysate that's created by the agent destruction leaked from one of the
complex's two chemical reactors.
No one was injured or exposed to the hydrolysate, which Arthur said contained
no active VX, which is so deadly that a single droplet can kill a human within
minutes.
The wastewater remained inside a sealed, contained area, and the spill happened
during routine maintenance work on the reactor, said Lt. Col. Scott Kimmell,
the depot's commander.
Tuesday's leak was the fourth spill at the depot since VX destruction began
last May. Spills occurred last June, July and October. The spill in October
was the largest to date, spilling about 490 gallons of hydrolysate when degraded
gaskets failed.
After each spill, the chemical neutralization project has been halted until
Army contractor Parsons Technology Inc. determined the cause and made necessary
repairs or upgrades.
A federal review continues into the Army's plan to ship the hydrolysate to
a DuPont Co. plant in New Jersey for final treatment and disposal into the
Delaware River.
The Army reported that as of Tuesday about 33,375 gallons of VX had been
destroyed _ about 13 percent of the more than 250,000 gallons originally
stored at the depot about 30 miles north of Terre Haute.
The total cost of the project now stands at $1.2 billion, including Parsons'
$782 million contract. That contract would run through the end of 2007, when
the VX destruction is scheduled to be complete, leaving behind between 2
million and 4 million gallons of the wastewater.