Associated Press
POSTED:
8:56 pm EST September 14, 2005
NEWPORT, Ind. -- Workers
have eliminated the flammability of wastewater produced during the destruction
of a deadly nerve agent, and disposal of the VX was expected to resume this
week, the Army said.
Still, officials cautioned the process could be delayed again at the Newport
Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in western Indiana.
"Safety is the hallmark of the chemical weapons disposal program and the
workers here at Newport," Jeffrey Brubaker, site project manager at the
facility, said in a statement Wednesday.
"That includes pausing, assessing and making adjustments as we move toward
full-scale destruction operations."
In May, workers at the Newport depot, 30 miles north of Terre Haute, began
destroying more than 250,000 gallons of VX using a chemical neutralization
process.
Officials halted the project in June after a leak caused about 30 gallons
of VX and caustic wastewater called hydrolysate to spill into a sealed area.
Later testing on samples from about 3,300 gallons of hydrolysate found flammability
levels much higher than what laboratory tests predicted.
Brubaker said operators adjusted the temperature and used nitrogen to make
the caustic wastewater nonflammable.
The increased flammability had been blamed on an accumulation of a chemical
called diisopropylamine.
