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“Right now, the proposal’s still out there and we’re going ahead,” Jeff Lindblad said. He’s a spokesman for the Chemical Materials Agency, a branch of the U.S. Army charged with weapons disposal.
Early this month, the U.S. Army began the process of neutralizing more than 1,200 tons of VX now being stored at an Indiana chemical depot, according to Lindblad. VX is a toxic nerve agent that could be used in chemical warfare.
The Army plans to transport millions of gallons of the neutralized VX by truck or rail to the DuPont Chambers Works, a wastewater treatment plant in Deepwater, Salem County. There, the nerve agent byproduct would be treated again and dumped into the Delaware River.
The Army is treating the VX in Indiana with water and a corrosive agent. They say that will create a liquid that the Chambers Works facility will treat with a new wastewater treatment technology to remove contaminants before it is released into the river, Lindblad said.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are investigating the dangers of transporting and treating the neutralized VX at the facility, officials said.
Though transport could begin within a year, the Army has yet to determine how it will ship the waste, Lindblad said. There are four possible routes, including shipping the neutralized VX by rail to Morrisville. There, it would be loaded on trucks and driven on Route 13 or Route 1 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike and into New Jersey.
Late last
week, however, N.J. Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner
Bradley Campbell said a new permit for DuPont’s Deepwater facility wouldn’t
allow dumping of the VX nerve agent. “The Army’s proposal is flawed, and
should be abandoned, not revised,” Campbell said in a statement.
Tim Ireland, a spokesman for DuPont Chambers Works, said the company knows the treatment of VX would require a separate permitting process.
Acting New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey also sent a letter to the Secretary of the Army outlining his opposition to treating the neutralized agent in New Jersey. He said that could adversely affect fish and other wildlife in the Delaware River. Codey said he was concerned about the amount of detectable VX that would remain even after the agent is treated at the Deepwater facility.Maya van Rossum, of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, applauded Codey’s and Campbell’s opposition to the VX proposal. Although Deepwater is more than 50 miles downstream of Bucks, van Rossum said the treated wastewater could adversely affect the river’s waters as far north as Morrisville and drinking water in southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
Anthony Farina, a spokesman for DuPont, denied that claim and said releasing the treated VX would have no negative environmental impact on the river.
Lindblad said even before it was treated at the Deepwater facility, the concentration of VX would be at 20 parts per billion — about the same as 20 drops of water in an Olympicsize swimming pool.
Codey and Campbell are both pushing the Army to treat the VX in Indiana. However, Lindblad said the Chambers Works facility was the closest one capable of treating the VX.
The Army still doesn’t have a contract with DuPont for the VX treatment and won’t sign a contract until the company has the proper permits to perform the work, Lindblad said.
Brian
Scheid can be reached at bscheid@phillyburbs.com.
May 26, 2005 5:50
AM