Dayton Daily News
June 5, 2003

Officials disagree on VX OK; 'Public acceptance' definition may be key to pact award

By Jim DeBrosse
jdebrosse@DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON | The final decision on whether Montgomery County will be the first site for disposing of waste products from the U.S. Army's neutralized VX nerve agent has become a political hot potato.

And in the end, two words in the proposed contract may determine the final destination for the treated waste product.

The Army has a clause in its proposed contract with Perma-Fix of Dayton Inc., an industrial wastewater treatment firm in Jefferson Twp., that requires "public acceptance" of the plan before Perma-Fix can begin treating shipments of the VX waste products from an Army base in Indiana and discharging them into the county's wastewater system.

Four cities and a township in Montgomery County voted against the Army plan last month, but the Army has not backed away. As a result, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, has been pressing the Army to define "public acceptance."

He got an answer in a May 15 letter from Assistant Secretary of the Army Claude M. Bolton Jr. that has left everyone involved scratching their heads. "We define public acceptance as approval by the Ohio EPA following their public involvement process," Bolton wrote.

But the Ohio EPA says that Perma-Fix has all the permits it needs to process VX waste product, called hydrolysate, since the Army describes it as a Drano-like substance no different than any other industrial waste product.

"If the hydrolysate waste stream is simply a corrosive wastewater, as it has been represented to us, Perma-Fix of Dayton Inc. is not require to obtain any approval from Ohio EPA to treat it through their industrial wastewater pretreatment process," Ohio EPA Director Christopher Jones said in May 23 letter to Bolton.

And even if Perma-Fix needed another permit, Jones wrote, "public acceptance is not one of the criteria Ohio law allows us to consider when evaluating a permit application."

Turner said in a phone interview Wednesday that "the Army is beginning to lose credibility. If the Army thinks this is public acceptance, then what do they think 'safe' means?"

Jones' letter to the Army went on to say that "the controlling permit in this instance will be the discharge permit, issued by Montgomery County, for the discharge of pretreated wastewater into the county's sanitary sewer system."

That has county commissioners saying, now wait a minute. "It's our opinion that we have to be told, either by the EPA or by the Army, you've got to take this," said County Commissioner Don Lucas.

Even so, Lucas said, the county is paying $33,000 for an outside consultant to review the Army and Perma-Fix plan "to make sure we've got independent expert knowledge that it's not going to be dangerous."

If the consultant - Bruce Rittmann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston - says the plan poses risks to county residents, "we're going to fight it," Lucas said. "We're not going to put something into our waste stream that endangers the health of the entire county and many others downstream."

But if Rittmann concurs with the Army that the plan is safe, "then I guess we don't have any choice," Lucas said.

Turner said Army officials have promised to send his office a detailed plan this week on how the public can get involved in the decision on whether VX waste products are disposed here.

For several months, Perma-Fix has been conducting test runs on small samples of hydrolysate. If the firm can show the Army that it can dispose of the waste product safely, Perma-Fix would be awarded a $9 million contract to treat and dispose of 300,000 gallons of the substance. Shipments from the Army stockpile in Newport, Ind. could then begin as early as October.