WASHINGTON - Bob and Joyce Ronketty's backyard
in South Jersey abuts the Delaware River, and the couple have grown quite
attached to the waterway, enjoying the fishing and other recreation.
So when they learned of the Army's plan to ship the
byproduct of four million gallons of a Cold War-era nerve agent - so lethal
that a small amount could kill millions - to a Salem County chemical plant
to be treated and then dumped into the river, the Penns Grove couple decided
to fight back.
"We feel that what they are going to do to this river
will be a disaster," Joyce Ronketty said in a telephone interview.
The Ronkettys are among a growing number of residents
in New Jersey and Delaware speaking out against the Army's plan. They are
joined by numerous lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews (D., N.J.),
one of the most vocal of New Jersey's lawmakers against the plan.
"This has been very controversial," Andrews said. "It's
been a big fight, and I intend to win."
So far, none of the 1,269 tons of VX nerve agent stored
at the Newport Chemical Depot in Newport, Ind., has been shipped anywhere.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental
Protection Agency are still reviewing the Army's plan to destroy VX, which
became paramount after Sept. 11, 2001, when nearby residents grew fearful
that terrorists could target the depot.
The Army wants to neutralize the nerve agent at the
Newport plant, a process that would turn VX into hydrolysate, a wastewater
substance similar to liquid drain cleaner. The hydrolysate is what the Army
wants to ship to the DuPont Co.'s Chambers Works Secure Environmental Treatment
Unit in Deepwater for further treatment before it is dumped into the Delaware.
By law, the Army has to destroy the nerve agent this
decade. The entire batch was developed in the 1960s in Newport, although
the U.S. military never used VX in combat. There has been human exposure
in the United States but no deaths. The agent's lethal potential was demonstrated,
however, when a 1968 aerial spraying test went wrong at Utah's Dugway Proving
Grounds and about 6,000 sheep were killed.
"An amount of this nerve agent that would fit on the
head of a pin would kill you," Andrews said. "Your nervous system would fail.
Your organs would fail. You would suffocate because your muscles would fail
and you would be unable to breathe."
The Army initially wanted to ship the VX to a plant
in Dayton, Ohio, but opposition there scuttled that plan. Then, Andrews said,
"DuPont stepped forward and saw the chance to make millions."
Spokesman Anthony Farina defended DuPont's plan but
said the company would wait for the CDC and EPA reports before deciding what
it would do next.
"While DuPont remains confident that it can treat the
neutralized wastewater resulting from the U.S. Army's VX destruction project
in a manner that is safe for our community and the environment, we acknowledge
the questions and concerns that have been raised by the public and state
regulatory officials," the company said in a statement.
Jeff Lindblad, spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials
Agency at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, said the Army would not
award its contract until the CDC and the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection had completed their assessments. But he stressed that the Army
believed its plan was safe.
The plan already had Joyce Ronketty out with petitions.
But when she learned that DuPont had dumped 3.6 gallons of the treated waste
into the river this year as a test, she was livid.
Andrews sent a letter in May to Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek,
the Army's inspector general, asking why the public had not been notified
of the test. His office is waiting for an official response.
Don Redfield of Carneys Point lives about a half-mile
north of the plant and grew up around the river.
The Delaware has been cleaned up in recent years, but
"now DuPont wants to take on this contract and put this stuff back into the
river and potentially mess it up again," Redfield said. "And why do they
have to truck it from there to here and put all these communities in danger?"
The plan is not opposed by everyone. Carneys Point Mayor
Mack Lake is a big supporter of the Chambers Works plant. Deepwater is a
section of both his town and Pennsville Township, and DuPont has been a huge
employer in the area since it began operation in Deepwater in 1914.
"Because the facility itself is in Carneys Point, we
want the facility to be successful, just as we want every business to be
successful," Lake said. "We also want assurances that everything is being
done properly and it's a safe product to be brought in."
Lake is in a minority of public officials who have been
receptive to the plan. Along with New Jersey and Delaware lawmakers who oppose
the shipment, some in Indiana also are against sending the nerve agent to
New Jersey.
Sara Morgan, a teacher who lives near the Newport plant,
said VX should not be shipped off to be someone else's problem. She led the
campaign that forced the Army to drop its original plan to incinerate the
VX, a method some feared could release poisons in the air.
"The citizens of the area where this is going to be
treated should be accepting of it," Morgan said in an interview. "I don't
think it should be shoved down their throats."
