PENNSVILLE TWP. -- New Jersey Congressman Rob Andrews demanded Wednesday that the Army release the results of recent tests that found a greater than expected amount of VX nerve agent remaining after neutralization attempts.
"This is a process that has been ignoble from the beginning in terms of disclosure," he said. "It has been an opaque process that should have been a transparent one."
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Andrews said he would seek any legislative or administrative remedies available to him if the Army does not meet his demand.
The neutralization tests -- which took place at Army laboratories in Maryland -- found trace elements of VX in leftover byproduct exceeding the Army's promised goal of 20 parts per billion or less, according to Andrews, citing news reports.
"It looks more and more like a risk we should not take," he said.
Andrews is an outspoken opponent of the Army plan to ship more than 1,200 tons of neutralized VX byproduct to DuPont Chambers Works in Deepwater for treatment and eventual disposal into the Delaware River.
The plan has also drawn concern from the governors of New Jersey and Delaware as well several environmental and community groups in those states.
This is the second time Andrews has publicly called on the Army to release the test results.
He originally requested the information in September, but was told later that month that the results would be released in the fall once the tests were finished, he said.
On Wednesday, Andrews called the Army's response "unacceptable" in light of the environmental and health risks posed by even a small quantity of the deadly nerve agent.
"I don't think it's a fair argument to say we the Army are not going to release the study until we're ready to," he said.
The Army is in the process of responding to Andrew's latest request, said Theresa Arthur, spokeswoman for the Newport Chemical Depot where the VX stockpile is slated to be destroyed.
"It's raw data and it's meaningless until it's put into context," Arthur said.
Andrews said he understood that the results were incomplete, but did not see the harm in releasing them for independent review.
"There's a huge public health issue here," he said. "If they're wrong by a little bit, the results could be catastrophic."