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DuPont wooing locals for
VX support
By JEAN JONES
COMMERCIAL TWP. DuPont apparently has been offering to sweeten the pot for those communities supporting the Army's proposal to have effluent from primary treatment of VX nerve gas further treated in Salem County and discharged into the Delaware River.
Maurice River is hoping for a boardwalk to the
Thompson's Beach waterfront and already has rescinded
its original resolution opposing the VX plan.
The Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, at Bivalve, has made its bid for an unspecified amount of money to support revitalization of the Delaware Bay oyster industry.
In a Nov. 10 letter to DuPont program manager Todd Owens, lab director Dr. Eric Powell thanked DuPont for its recent presentation regarding the plan and suggested four areas where DuPont could assist the industry.
A stock assessment survey has been conducted for only a portion of the oyster seed beds, he wrote. Annual Stock Assessment Workshops have urged completion of surveys, which are a factor in determining each year which beds should be opened and what harvest allocations should be.
Also, development of a comprehensive model of the shell resource, Powell wrote, is critical because the oyster resource cannot survive if the declining shell resource, clean shells on the bay floor, disappears. Larval oysters attach to other shells for continued growth. Empty shell is "planted" to provide the necessary surface, but shell planting was largely discontinued for many years. The increased planting of shell in the past two years has shown that this increases recruitment, or the attachment of new oysters, which has been very low for the last five years.
There is a need to know how much shell needs to be added to sustain each bed, so areas for future shell planting can be targeted.
The third project would be a measurement of oyster growth rates. An analysis of the growth rate of oysters under market size is essential for more accurate prediction of the effects of transplanting oysters from upbay beds to those farther downbay for faster growth. This also is important for determining the annual harvest quota, because the number of market sized animals at the end of the harvest season should equal the number at the beginning of the season. The number of animals expected to grow to market size within the year is dependent on growth rates of undersized animals.
The final project would be monitoring of bacteria in Delaware Bay, especially Vibrio parahaemolyticus, which caused a brief shut-down of harvest three years ago, when a virulent strain resulted in sickness for a handful of people who ate the oysters raw.
Also, closed shellfish harvest areas at the mouth of the Maurice River have been expanding each year due to contamination coming down river from an undetermined animal source.
The survey would include Dermo, a parasite which is harmless to humans but eventually weakens and kills oysters. Dermo has been responsible for oyster mortality in Delaware Bay since the 1990s
Oystermen Scott Sheppard, who has joined with waterman George Kumor in asking communities which have passed resolutions opposing the DuPont treatment to reverse their position, said DuPont has met with representatives of those communities and made various offers.
DuPont previously treated mustard gas for the Army and a review of the plan for VX treatment has been conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
DEP must issue a permit for the discharge and Barney Hollinger, chairman of the Delaware Bay Section of the Shell Fisheries Council, has said the council will take no stand until the permit is approved. A pubic hearing would be requested.
The liquid material to be transported here from Newport, Ind., would already have been neutralized to remove the dangerous element of the gas. Further treatment is needed to remove a caustic element which has been described as similar in effect to drain cleaner. DuPont and the Army maintain that the final product will be harmless to the environment.