MAURICE RIVER TWP. -- Despite two hours of fielding questions on the plan to dump cleaned nerve gas wastewater into the Delaware River, representatives of DuPont and the Army Corps of Engineers did not appear to have made any converts Thursday.
DuPont chemical engineer Todd Owens and Col. Jesse Barber, of the Army
Corps of Engineers gave a presentation at the Maurice River Township Committee
meeting. It was the first such meeting in this area and the room was packed.
Owens and Barber distributed three pages of fact sheets detailing the history
of the project.
Tracy Carluccio, of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, distributed four pages of information, with arguments as to why the plan to pretreat stockpiles of VX nerve agent at the government's Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Newport, Indiana, and transport it to the DuPont Chambers Works facility at Deepwater, Salem County, for further treatment and disposal into the Delaware River.
"In 1997, the U.S. signed an international treaty and said we would destroy all chemical weapons," Barber said. "Since 1988, I've been on that mission."
Barber said there was a lot of misunderstanding about the project and "the things you see in the papers are not always true." The contract with DuPont is not a "done deal" and although the VX is being systematically destroyed at the Newport plant, DuPont will not begin treating it until The Centers for Disease Control issues its final report. on an analysis of the technology.
"Until they publish their report, we will continue to keep it in storage," he said.
Owens said DuPont got involved because it had worked on a prior project to treat mustard gas for the army. Assessments were done for VX on its treatability, transportation, the human health effects of the wastewater and its possible ecological effects on the Delaware River.
The treated wastewater that DuPont receives is 85 percent water, eight percent organics and the rest is a caustic corrosive. Owens compared it to a drain cleaner or similar substance.
Because there were concerns by the public that the treated wastewater would contain a small amount of phosphorous, which is a nutrient and can cause algae blooms, DuPont developed the technology to remove 99 percent of the phosphorous.
Barber said 11 vendors had been considered for the job and he had eliminated all but four.
He said criteria for selection were that the technology has to be sound and the vendor has to demonstrate that they can do the job.
DuPont met those criteria, he said, and already has safely handled more
than four million gallons of mustard gas wastewater from Aberdeen.
John Diorio asked if tests had been done to determine effects on horseshoe crabs, oysters, blue claw crabs and other Delaware Bay inhabitants.
Owens responded that tests had been done on even more sensitive organisms.
Impacts on Delaware Bay were also concerns of Capt George Kumor, a commercial fisherman, Scott Sheppard, an oysterman, and Maurice River Township Clerk J. Roy Oliver.
Kumor suggested a fund be set up to compensate commercial fishermen in case there were unexpected impacts.
Sheppard and Oliver warned that people might not want to eat oysters that came from the same body of water where the VX wastewater was dumped.
Sheppard said there is a project to revitalize the Delaware Bay oyster industry and asked why DuPont never came to a meeting of the Delaware Bay Shellfisheries Council.
Oliver wanted to know whether tests had been done for secondary toxicity, which might affect reproduction of marine life.
Township Solicitor Ed Duffy said it would be a good idea to set up a trust fund to cover unexpected impacts.
"That would show partnership between the community and the company," he said. "I think a lot of the anger you hear is from frustration. It's a private corporation generating profit from something that belongs to all of us."
Mayor Ron Riggins asked about DuPont's safety record. Owens said DuPont is a leader in the industry for safety, although every industry has some violations.
Carluccio raised concerns about the transport of the VX wastewater from Indiana to New Jersey and wanted to know why it could not be disposed of there.
She also questioned the record of DuPont as to accidents and its history concerning the release of dangerous chemicals, citing Perfluorooctanoic acid, which she said breaks down into PFOA, which is now found in the blood of 96 percent of people in the USA.
Several members of the audience just expressed general distrust of the government and whether they were getting the whole story.
Owens and Barber will give a presentation at the Commercial Township Committee meeting at 7 p.m. on March 23.