Narrative from the "Paula Zahn Now" show, re: Army plans for Indiana VX hydrolysate

November 25, 2005


Next, the Army has got a problem. They are talking about neutralizing some nerve gas and dumping what's left in a major river.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are going to dump it in here?

DAN BEYEL, CHAIRMAN, CAPE MAY COUNTY BOARD: We're very concerned.

COL. JESSE BARBER, U.S. ARMY CHEMICAL MATERIALS AGENCY: It will not pose a hazard or risk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Who is right? And when it comes to nerve gas, is it worth taking the chance somebody is wrong?
--------------------

COLLINS: Right now, the U.S. military is hard at work figuring out how to destroy one of the most lethal chemical weapons ever created. It's called VX, a substance so deadly that only the military is allowed to move it.

You'd think neutralizing VX is a good idea. But just wait until you see where the army has chosen as a final resting place. Here's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT at Newport, Indiana (voice-over): For 40 years, hidden out of sight here behind these cornfields, the U.S. Army has stockpiled the biggest part of this nation's nerve gas supply.

More than 1,200 tons of VX stored in steel casks. Inside, row after row of reinforced bunkers, guarded around the clock.

(on camera): VX is so deadly, just a drop the size of a B.B. could kill me if it soaked through my skin. Back in the Cold War days, the U.S. brewed almost 9 million pounds of this killer chemical at a little-noticed plant in small-town western Indiana. It was never used in combat, and now the U.S. must figure out a way to destroy what's left of its stockpile, without panicking people who never expected to find nerve agent in their neighborhood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE AT CAPE MAY BEACH ON THE BAY:  Nerve gas?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE STANDING ON BEACH: They're going to dump it in here?

KAYE (voice-over): Here is the Delaware River, which flows past this beach in the summer resort town of Cape May, New Jersey.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE ON BEACH: You don't have to say anymore. Who wants nerve gas in our water?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE AT BEACH: If that's true, it's terrible.

KAYE: But this is what the army wants to do. To use this DuPont plant upstream to finish scrubbing out the deadly poison and then dump the leftover waste water into the river, right where you see what's bubbling up here.

COL. JESSE BARBER, U.S. ARMY CHEMICAL MATERIALS AGENCY: What we are proposing is safe. The technology is sound, the science is rock solid.

KAYE: VX is not really a nerve gas, it's more of a sticky liquid.

BARBER: It resembles motor oil. It is a consistency similar to that. It's yellowish in color.

KAYE: At Newport, Indiana, in the 1960s, the army made its nerve liquid to be poured into rockets and artillery shells, ready if needed for World War III.

Much of that VX is still here. Now under a new treaty, the U.S. is starting to destroy it. The poison is loaded into a special reactor, mixed with a solution much like oven cleaner, heated and swirled around in a huge blender, designed to render the VX harmless.

Q & A, Lab Technician

Q (on camera): And so if it all shows clear then it doesn't have to go back into the reactor?

A: For the VX, that would be correct.

KAYE (voice-over): Lab technicians test around the clock. The catch? Science can't be sure all of the V.X. is washed out.

(on camera): You are looking to get this down to what you consider safe, what the army considers safe, which is 20 parts per billion. Why can't you get it down to zero parts per billion?

BARBER: The analytical instruments that are built today don't measure down to zero.

KAYE (voice-over): So the army wants to ship that VX waste water halfway across the country, to the DuPont facility for a second process meant to finish the job, before pumping what's left into the Delaware River.

(on camera): How many gallons of this VX waste water are we talking about putting into the river?

BARBER: We would be talking about shipping approximately two truckloads a day, or 10,000 gallons.

KAYE (voice-over): That's two truckloads a day for two years or more.

DAN BEYEL, CHAIRMAN, CAPE MAY COUNTY BOARD: We're very concerned, because we'd rather be safe than sorry down the road, if something isn't as reliable as we think it is.

KAYE (voice-over): An hour down river, officials in Cape May, have come out against the army plan. This 19th century resort makes its living from the sun, the sand, the summer, and the sea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE IN WATER AT BEACH ON THE BAY: Tourism is huge here. And it's so much the part of the local economy that if you have something that could put it at risk, then you're going to have a lot of businesses and people that are suffering because of it.

KAYE: Cape May is also a fishing port. And environmentalists say some fish could be killed, even by a tiny amount of VX, if left in the run-off.

MAYA VAN ROSSUM, DELAWARE RIVER ENVIRONMENTALIST: According to the studies, the levels of VX nerve agent that could be in this discharge kills striped bass.

KAYE: And Maya Van Rossum worries drinking water could be affected up and down the river.

VAN ROSSUM: The Delaware River's tidal, so the water sloshes back and forth.

KAYE: Both ways?

VAN ROSSUM: Both ways, upstream and downstream.

KAYE: DuPont says it won't handle the VX waste unless it is certain everything is safe. No contract has been signed so far. Opponents want the army to rethink its plan and finish the cleanup job at the Newport plant. That would mean more time and much more money.

VAN ROSSUM: And the fact of the matter is, even if it were to take a longer period of time and more dollars as they're claiming, that doesn't make it OK to discharge this very toxic stuff into our Delaware River.

KAYE: For now, the plan to drain it into the Delaware has been blocked by the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, because of that threat to fish. But the army says DuPont has improved its scrubbing process and so a second EPA review is underway.

BARBER: It will not pose a hazard or a risk to the aquatic life in any form or fashion.

KAYE (on camera): So is your plan still alive then, would you say?

BARBER: Absolutely.

KAYE (voice-over): Even if the EPA should reverse itself, for now, New Jersey's own environmental officials have denied DuPont a state permit to process the VX waste water, pending months more of hearings and heated debate. If the army does go ahead, this Cape May father won't let his children back in the water ever again.

UNIDENTIFIED YOUNG MALE AT BEACH: I wouldn't want anybody in there, even if they said it was safe. I don't think the ocean is a dumping ground. It's not our trash can.

KAYE: Randi Kaye, CNN, Cape May, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: One final note, the destruction of VX began last May in Indiana. So far none of it has reached the Delaware River. Of 250,000 gallons, only around 7,000 gallons have been neutralized so far and none of it has been shipped yet to the plant on the Delaware River, to be clear.
--