By Brian Lyman
Star Staff Writer
05-05-2005

One of the nation’s last chemical disposal sites should begin destroying nerve agent today, but the ultimate destination of its byproducts is still up in the air. Crews are scheduled to start processing 2.5 million pounds of VX at the Newport Chemical Depot in Newport, Ind. The depot manufactured VX for the Army through the late 1960s. The site will use a chemical neutralization process, mixing the nerve agent with sodium hydroxide and hot water to neutralize the agent. "We’re ramping up very slowly and very deliberately," said Terry Arthur, a spokeswoman for the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. The destruction of the agent should be complete in late 2007. Newport is the last site in the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency, which oversees chemical disposal operations at Anniston and throughout the country, to begin operations. Newport has about 4 percent of the nation’s Cold War stockpile, all of it VX stored in bulk containers. The site is also the only one under CMA to use chemical neutralization to destroy its agent rather than incineration. The process creates a byproduct called hydrolysate, which will need to be transported to another facility for further treatment. Finding a community willing to accept the vagabond byproduct has been difficult. Plans initially called for the hydrolysate to be destroyed in Ohio by Perma-Fix Environmental Services, a waste management company based in Gainesville, Fla. But protests in the town in 2003 forced the Army to look elsewhere, and the Army finally turned to a DuPont treatment plant in Deepwater, N.J. The plant would treat the hydrolysate on scene and release the remaining byproduct into the Delaware River. That plan has caused controversy in southern New Jersey. The Environmental Protection Agency says that they have not received enough information on the impact of treatment on the wildlife in the river. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month withheld recommendation of DuPont’s treatment proposal, citing the EPA’s concerns. DuPont says it is working on a treatment process that will eliminate 95 percent to 99 percent of any phosphanates from the hydrolysate, which the company says will address the concerns. "We believe the technology will address many of the concerns, not only from the community last year and state regulators, but additionally the concerns of the EPA," said DuPont spokesman Anthony Farina. The Army can not sign a contract with DuPont until it gets approval on the plan from those agencies. "It will just sit in limbo because as the facility produces hydrolysate, it’s put into isolation containers on the site," said Greg Mahall, a CMA spokesman. "Obviously, it’s going to be large, but we have a limited storage capacity." Perma-Fix last week announced that it had developed a process to treat the hydrolysate at the treatment facility itself, but did not provide details. CMA has not contacted the company. Messages left at Perma-Fix’s office Wednesday were not returned.

About Brian Lyman

Brian Lyman covers infrastructure and the cities of Heflin and Lincoln for the Anniston Star. He lives in Anniston.