The 200th, 201st and 202nd shipments of a neutralized nerve agent will have arrived at Veolia Environmental's incinerator by this morning, marking the halfway point of the destruction of the caustic wastewater in Southeast Texas.

In about a year, Veolia's incinerators will have destroyed all of the 430 shipments from a U.S. Army stockpile facility in Newport, Ind., said Dan Duncan, Veolia's environmental, health and safety manager.

On Thursday, the facility celebrated making it to the midpoint without any incidents, officials said.

"There’s been no danger to employees," Duncan said. "It's been done in a way that's safe for employees and the community."

There's been about a half million miles of safe transport of the hydrolysate, Col. Bob Billington of the U.S. Army's Chemical Materials Agency said while at Veolia on Thursday. The team of Veolia; Tri State Management, which transports the material; and Parsons, the contractor that runs the Newport site, have exhibited "exceptional teamwork" in disposing of the wastewater as per international treaty, Billington said.

The first shipments arrived in April, along with environmental groups protesting the shipments to the Port Arthur area.

In-power and Development Association in Port Arthur and other groups across the country, including the Sierra Club and the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, filed to get an injunction to prevent the shipments in May, and the shipments stopped in June until a judge could rule. The judge ruled against the groups, and the shipments resumed in August, according to The Enterprise archives.

The groups are considering an appeal or another lawsuit. Last weekend, they had a protest on Port Arthur’s West Side, which is about 12 miles from the facility.

Safety has been one of the top priorities in all aspects, including the transport, storage and disposal, said Greg Mahall, a Chemical Materials Agency's public affairs specialist.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the federal Centers for Disease Control, Environmental Protection Agency and others had to be in the loop on the project, Mahall said.

"There are few missions in the government as important as this," Billington said.

At the Newport facility, the VX nerve agent is neutralized to hydrolysate, a caustic wastewater in which the agent levels are required to be below 9.3 parts per million, Duncan said. In the tests done on the shipments, the agent isn’t detected, he said.

The 4,000-gallon trucks take about 18 hours to get from Newport to Port Arthur, Duncan said. Along the route, the trucks are tracked via satellite and local law enforcement agencies can see where they are. The team drivers have inspections every two hours, Duncan added.

After arrival at the facility here, which is about three miles outside the Port Arthur city limits, the wastewater is pumped into a rotary kiln and then to a combustion chamber with temperatures higher than 2000 degrees Fahrenheit for final incineration, Duncan said. The wastewater is incinerated with other substances to neutralize the gases, which are treated in the facility.

Also Thursday, Veolia served a free breakfast and lunch to the nearly 200 employees at the site and recognized several who help with the continued safety of the hydrolysate incineration.