AP New Jersey

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VX byproduct dumping would be delayed under House proposal

By Associated Press
May 11, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Army's plan to dump a neutralized byproduct of the deadly nerve agent VX into the Delaware River in New Jersey may be headed for another delay.

As part of a broader military bill up for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, lawmakers were expected to approve a provision that would require the Government Accountability Office to study the program and not allow the Army to move ahead with its plans until at least February 2007.

The Army last year began neutralizing VX, a liquid so deadly that contact with one droplet could kill a person, at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana. The Army, which is required by a 1997 international treaty to destroy the chemical weapon by 2012, has for years been trying to win approval to ship the byproduct to a DuPont facility in Salem County, where it would be dumped into the river.

Last year, New Jersey's congressional delegation won a delay by requiring the Army to submit a cost-benefit analysis of the plan. This time, Democratic Rep. Robert Andrews and Republican Reps. James Saxton and Frank LoBiondo proposed that the GAO review that Army report.

"I think anything of this level of importance requires an independent review," Andrews said during a conference call Thursday. "I want someone who has no vested interest in the outcome of this issue to look at it thoroughly."

Under the proposal, the GAO would have to finish its work by Dec. 1 and the Army would not be allowed to start shipping the chemical until at least Feb. 1, 2007.

A second provision would establish a new process designed to be shielded from politics for the Army to use when choosing where to dispose of chemical weapons.

If it is passed by the House, differences with the Senate bill would have to be worked out before it would go to the president to become law.