By LAWRENCE HAJNA
Courier-Post Staff

Spurred by three South Jersey congressmen, the House of Representatives voted Thursday to delay until at least February 2007 the Army's plan to discharge wastewater from the destruction of a Cold War nerve agent into the Delaware River.

If ultimately approved by the Senate and signed by President Bush, a measure included in the Defense Department's annual authorization bill would require the Government Accountability Office to review the project's costs.

The GAO, which is the independent review arm of Congress, also would study the feasibility of the Army treating the wastewater at its Newport Chemical Weapons Depot in Indiana.

The Army's plan to neutralize VX nerve agent in Indiana and truck the wastewater to DuPont's Secure Environmental Treatment facility in Carneys Point, Salem County, has been met with stiff resistance in South Jersey.

Opponents fear traces of VX -- one of the most lethal substances ever made -- will survive the destruction process. The Army insists this is not possible.

Army officials said they will cooperate with the directives of Congress.

"This is an issue that affects all our constituents in the southern half of the state and knows no party boundaries," said U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, D-Haddon Heights.

He was joined by U.S. Reps. Frank A. LoBiondo, R-Ventnor, and Jim Saxton, R-Mount Holly, in announcing the measure.

Saxton noted the nation has a duty to destroy chemical weapons, but said "the highly populated Delaware Valley region is not an appropriate place to dispose this type of substance."

LoBiondo said commercial and recreational fishermen in the Delaware Bay region are worried about the proposal.

"People are just beside themselves," he said.

Joyce Ronketty, a Penns Grove resident who lives upriver from DuPont, said she fears the measure will only stall the project.

"Anything is better than nothing at all; that's not saying much," she said. "If we have to do it on a year-by-year basis, so be it."

But Andrews, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the plan, believes this will deal a fatal blow to a proposal that he says jeopardizes the region's safety and the river environment.

Reach Lawrence Hajna at (856) 486-2466 or lhajna@courierpostonline.com

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KEY POINT

The Army has been neutralizing VX with hot water and sodium hydroxide since May 2005. It is storing the wastewater in containers in Indiana. It could ship up to 4 million gallons of the wastewater, which it says is like household drain cleaner, to DuPont's Secure Environmental Treatment wastewater plant in Carneys Point.