NEWPORT, Ind. (AP) -- An Army contractor resumed work Monday destroying a deadly nerve agent following a nearly two-week pause to replace degraded seals in a chemical reactor.

The VX project, scheduled to be complete by the end of 2007, is expected to produce up to 4 million gallons of hydrolysate that the Army wants to ship to DuPont's Secure Environmental Treatment facility in Carneys Point, Salem County, for final treatment and discharge into the Delaware River.

Workers discovered the degraded seals May 18 in a three-way valve in one of Newport Chemical Depot's two reactors, prompting the shutdown of both reactors used to destroy the western Indiana complex's VX nerve agent.

On Monday, chemical neutralization of the VX resumed in Reactor No. 1 following replacement and testing of the three-way valve system, said Jeff Brubaker, the Army's site project manager.

Operations will resume in the other reactor after testing is complete on that reactor's new three-way valve system, Brubaker said in a statement.

Engineering data related to the valve system replacement has revealed the maximum number of hours of operation before the valves' internal seals need to be examined, he said.

"When we face challenges, we stop work, assess and correct the situation if necessary, then move forward," said Rick Rife, project manager for contractor Parsons Technology Inc.

Parsons' workers are destroying the VX stockpile by mixing batches of it with heated water and sodium hydroxide in the chemical reactors, leaving behind a caustic wastewater called hydrolysate.

The plan to ship the hydrolysate to South Jersey has been met with resistance. 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.

Since VX destruction began in May 2005, workers have destroyed about 15 percent of the more than 250,000 gallons of VX stored at the complex about 30 miles north of Terre Haute. The Cold War-era agent is so potent a single droplet of it can kill a person.