Army delays start of Newport VX destruction by several months

By RICK CALLAHAN
Associated Press Writer

August 23, 2004, 5:28 PM EDT

INDIANAPOLIS -- Army officials have pushed back until late this year plans to begin destroying a deadly nerve agent stockpiled in western Indiana after the project's test run raised nearly 200 operational and safety-related issues.

The delay is the latest at the Newport Chemical Depot, where Army officials expressed hope this spring that they could begin chemically neutralizing 1,269 tons of VX nerve agent in July or August.

Barring further delays, however, the 2 1/2-year project is now expected to start between October and December at the Army installation about 30 miles north of Terre Haute, said Jeff Brubaker, the Army's site project manager.

Two teams of government officials who witnessed July's tests at the sprawling complex built to destroy the stockpile raised 190 issues about its operation or safety.

Brubaker said the neutralization project will not start until all of those issues have been addressed and the teams are satisfied with the results.

"We feel that the plant is completely safe today, but we have an obligation to address the observations the two teams left behind," he said.

Army spokeswoman Terry Arthur said 156 of the 190 issues have not yet been resolved by the Army and its contractor, Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group of Pasadena, Calif., which has a $612 million contract for the VX project.

Among the changes the teams recommended were installing more air monitoring equipment inside the complex, boosting backup power in its laboratory and eliminating condensation dripping from air ducts in the lab, Arthur said.

"Some of these were safety-related but none of them were show-stoppers," she said.

During the six-day test of the neutralization process, Army contractors used water as a stand-in for VX _ an oil-like liquid which can kill a healthy adult male with a single pinpoint droplet.

Their work was watched by a team of top Army officials and a second group of Army representatives and officials from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Even if the issues they raised are quickly resolved, the VX destruction cannot begin until the CDC concludes its review of the project. The agency is examining the Army's methods of destroying the VX, its plans to ship the waste byproduct to New Jersey, and whether a DuPont Inc. plant there can safely treat and dispose of it.

The Environmental Protection Agency is helping the CDC evaluate the ecological impact of DuPont's plans to dump the treated hydrolysate _ a chemical the Army compares to liquid drain cleaner _ into the Delaware River.

That plan has generated strong opposition in both New Jersey and Delaware.

CDC spokeswoman Stephanie Creel said Monday there was no set timeline for the agency to complete its review and submit its findings to Congress.

"We don't want to rush this. We want to do the best science we can, but we understand the need to do it well and do it quickly," Creel said.

Meanwhile, work continues at Army laboratories in Edgewood, Md., on small-scale tests to chemically neutralize samples from Newport's VX stockpile using the same process that will be used in Indiana in huge chemical reactors.

Technicians are neutralizing VX samples that represent eight batches of the chemical weapon produced at Newport during the 1960s, said Jeff Lindblad, a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency at Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

Originally, the Army thought 85 percent of Newport's VX was stabilized with one type of chemical and a second chemical was used on the remaining 15 percent.

As it turns out, Lindblad said, at least two of the eight batches contain a mixture of both stabilizers. Those have proved difficult to neutralize and still meet the Army's goal of producing hydrolysate with no greater than 20 parts per billion of VX.