Army wants to treat wastewater from nerve agent at DuPont facility

By JEFF MONTGOMERY
Gannett News Service
PENNSVILLE TWP.

A U.S. Army plan to treat caustic wastewater left from the planned destruction of a deadly nerve agent at DuPont's wastewater plant has sparked vigorous opposition from government officials and residents of New Jersey and Delaware.

But the Chambers Works wastewater plant, at the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge on the Delaware River in Gloucester County, already is one of the country's top sources of toxic water discharges, Environmental Protection Agency records show.

DuPont wants an Army contract to treat up to 4 million gallons of caustic wastewater containing chemicals left over after neutralization of VX nerve agent, one of the world's deadliest chemical weapons.

The project would replace a disposal plan the Army abandoned last year in Ohio in the face of community opposition.

Despite DuPont's patented method for scrubbing wastewater with carbon and microbes, environmental groups have said the Secure Environmental Treatment Unit at the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge symbolizes weaknesses in the Clean Water Act.

That law, members of state and national environmental groups said, lets some wastewater plants serve as "pollution sinks," releasing toxic and sometimes obscure chemicals that may be overlooked or go unmentioned in public reviews and reports.

"I think that a big red flag is flying above DuPont Chambers Works right now, and frankly, it's begging for an investigation into what they are currently discharging into the river, and what they propose to discharge into the river," said Maya van Rossum, who directs the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group.

Paul D. Schwartz, national policy director for the environmental group Clean Water Action, said wastewater plants are required to identify on permits any pollutants they expect to discharge from their plants.

In some cases, however, day-to-day releases of chemicals may go unmonitored because concentrations are low, they are unmentioned on federal "priority pollutant" lists or they have yet to be studied for toxic effects.

The governors of Delaware and New Jersey urged the Army last week to reconsider its chemical weapons waste plan, pointing to evidence that Chambers Works would simply dilute and discharge two compounds without a clear understanding of the effect on the river.