Dayton Daily News
Editorial
June 1, 2003

Army is not making sense with VX plan

A Dayton Daily News Editorial

The U.S. military maintains large stock-piles of lethal chemical agents and weapons - thousands of tons of deadly nerve and blister agents. They're stored in hundreds of thousands of armaments and containers situated across the country.

The nation has a compelling interest in making sure this material is destroyed. Mankind would benefit immeasurably from the orderly destruction of chemical warfare agents here and throughout the world.

That's why the U.S. Army has been under congressional mandate for nearly 20 years to dispose of chemical agents, not to mention the fact that the United States is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention - a treaty that calls for the destruction of most material by 2007.

Dayton's not neutral on the plan

Now, the Miami Valley is being asked to participate in the chemical weapons disposal program. Specifically, the Army wants to ship about 300,000 gallons of chemical waste to a private treatment facility in Jefferson Twp. The material is a byproduct of the deadly VX nerve agent, 1,200 tons of which are stockpiled at a military depot in Newport, Ind., about 195 miles from Dayton.

The plan calls for the nerve agent to be "neutralized" at the Newport facility, with the VX-free byproduct (a heavy, corrosive liquid called "hydrolysate") shipped here for additional treatment and disposal in the region's waterways.

Concerned public officials have posed a long list of technical questions to the Army. It has provided detailed answers, but the explanations are not moderating, much less reversing, community opposition.

Affected townships and cities, including Dayton and Jefferson Twp., have adopted formal resolutions asking the Army to abandon its plan. U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, is insisting local communities be given veto power. The Army says it considers "public acceptance" a key element of the project.

It needs to mean what it says, and it needs to understand that community opposition doesn't show selfish resistance to sharing in a national burden. It stems from fundamental flaws in the Army's proposal.

Army's case doesn't add up

Simply put, the Army hasn't adequately explained why Dayton is needed as a disposal site. The program being peddled is said to be about homeland security, but the Army's case just doesn't add up.

Military officials observe how stockpiles of chemical warfare agents have become especially worrisome since 9/11. They could become targets of devastating domestic terrorist activity. All of which makes perfect sense.

These same officials make no sense, though, when they argue that trucking chemical waste across the Midwest from a remote, rural military installation to Dayton, a densely populated metropolitan area, somehow reduces the terror risk.

Neutralizing the VX is what defuses that risk. Dayton has nothing to do with that process. Neutralization of the nerve agent will occur in Indiana, where the material is stockpiled.

Shipping the byproduct here for final disposal offers no additional anti-terror protection. In fact, it introduces a whole new set of risks that don't seem to be well understood.

Long-term safety risks unknown

The waste from neutralized VX is said to resemble household "Drano" with some "Roundup" weed killer mixed in. These are toxic chemicals, to be sure, but they don't present the horrific dangers of a nerve agent.

The Army has less to say, though, on whether exposure to the waste has longer-term health risks.

Written materials the Army has prepared to advise workers and emergency personnel about how to handle VX hydrolysate - a document known as a Material Safety Data Sheet - itemize the chemical components. But the concentrations at which many become toxic are listed as "unknown."

The data sheet also discloses that the ingredients aren't registered as carcinogens, but with an important qualification - not "presently." This uncertainty is due to a general lack of experience with the ingredients. Many generally aren't found in industry, but are "military unique." Thus, long-term safety details just aren't known.

The Army knows enough, though, to warn workers not to consume or even keep their food or beverages anywhere near the stuff. Exits at facilities where the material is stored, moreover, must be "designed to permit rapid evacuation."

But where does that leave residents of Jefferson Twp. in the event of an accidental spill? They live in the neighborhoods where the material will be shipped and kept until it would be flushed away.

Army should exercise other options

Army officials admit they can safely store the hydrolysate at the Newport depot, that doing so is easy and that they're good at it. But that approach is more costly, and they complain that it could a take year or longer to get the necessary government permits.

This excuse is so implausible it borders on the ridiculous.

It's unimaginable that regulatory officials would deny the U.S. Army permission to store material that's much less dangerous in the same place where they've stockpiled so much of a lethal nerve agent, especially if doing so would promptly remove a perceived terrorist threat.

At bottom, the Army's initiative seems all about cost savings and convenience. It doesn't want to take the time, or spend the money, to better understand the risks or the best way of handling the hydrolysate.

Instead, once the VX agent is neutralized, the Army wants to put the waste on trucks, kiss it goodbye and close down the Newport facility.

The Miami Valley isn't interested in participating in that kind of experiment. The Army hasn't shown why anyone in this community or along the 195-mile route from Newport should assume these risks.

The Army should come around and ask for sacrifice when it has a genuine need - not when it wants to save a few bucks.