Disposal of VX byproduct in Del. River brings worries
By LAWRENCE HAJNA
Courier-Post Staff
CARNEYS POINT
South Jersey residents attended a public meeting Wednesday night to learn more about a plan the Army and DuPont have to treat the wastewater byproduct of a neutralized Cold War-era nerve agent.
Many left unconvinced that the plan is safe.
About 300 people attended the session, which was marked by loud applause for the plan's foes and light clapping for supporters.
Under the plan, the Army would ship caustic wastewater, resulting from the destruction of VX nerve agent, from Indiana to South Jersey. DuPont would treat the wastewater before discharging it into the Delaware River.
Several speakers expressed fear that the process would harm the environment. Some worried that the nerve agent could be reconstituted by terrorists.
Army and DuPont officials said the process would be safe and the material could not be reconstituted.
"I find it a disgrace the way the Delaware Bay is being defamed," said John DiOrio, a 48-year-old corrections officer from Maurice River Township, Cumberland County. "I think it's time to stop all dumping in the Delaware Bay and the river."
A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-Haddon Heights, called for
the wastewater to be handled in Indiana.
"The disposal of our chemical weapons is right and necessary," said Amy Simmerman, who read a statement from Andrews. "But this plan would dispose of these wastes in the wrong place and in the wrong way."
She said the plan has "too many unanswered environmental questions," including the possibility that the nerve gas could "reconstitute itself."
But John Strait, site manager for DuPont's Chambers Works chemical facility, said the nerve agent will be destroyed in Indiana. "The agent cannot be reformulated in the waste stream," he said.
And Army Col. Jesse Barber said Indiana has no facilities that can treat and discharge the wastewater.
Carneys Point residents Beverly and Thurston Howard expressed confidence in DuPont in remarks before the meeting.
"I feel they can handle it," said Beverly Howard, a 62-year-old homemaker whose husband is a DuPont retiree. "I have a lot of faith in DuPont."
The Army accelerated plans to destroy its chemical weapon stockpiles after 9/11 to reduce potential terrorist targets. Barber said he hopes the VX destruction process will begin in June.
"On 9/11, we saw a different kind of terrorists, a different way of them coming after America," Barber said. "The best way to lessen the risk to the United States and the world is total elimination of that stockpile."
The Army scheduled Wednesday's meeting earlier this year, after elected officials and residents learned of the plan from newspaper reports. The only public notice of DuPont's proposal had been a small legal notice in a local newspaper that did not specify that the plan involved deadly VX nerve agent.
The Army plans to destroy more than 1,200 tons of VX nerve agent, now at its Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana.
The Army will neutralize the VX, an oily liquid, by mixing it with hot sodium hydroxide and hot water. That will create between 2 million and 4 million gallons of a caustic wastewater known as hydrolysate, which has been likened to household drain cleaner.
DuPont's Secure Environmental Treatment plant, the largest industrial wastewater treatment plant in North America, is to remove most of the organic chemicals and salts left over from the neutralization process and discharge the remaining water into the Delaware River.
DuPont expects to receive about two tanker trucks per day for up to three years from the Newport depot. The Army says it will not ship any hydrolysate that contains detectable traces of nerve agent.
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Reach Lawrence Hajna at (856) 486-2466 or lhajna@courierpostonline.com