Dayton Daily News
September 16, 2003

VX safety test fails to impress foes:  Sample too small, group says

By Jim DeBrosse
jdebrosse@DaytonDailyNews.com

JEFFERSON TWP., Montgomery County | A recent demonstration by Perma-Fix of Dayton shows it can safely dispose of the waste products from the Army’s neutralized VX nerve agent. But opponents of an Army plan to ship a million gallons of VX by-products to the Jefferson Twp. waste treatment company said the study was too small to be valid and that the samples lacked a chemical stabilizer present in the Army’s VX stockpiles in Newport, Ind.

“What a waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” Jane Forrest Redfern of the Citizens for the Responsible Destruction of Chemical Weapons in the Miami Valley said Monday. “They were testing apples and they should have been testing oranges."

In a press conference, the group released both the Perma-Fix study and its objections. The group obtained the confidential report, parts of which were redacted by Perma-Fix and the Army, from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. If the Army approves the plan, Perma-Fix will begin receiving shipments of VX waste products — a Drano-like substance called hydrolysate — in January.

An original starting date of October was delayed because the Army is having problems neutralizing the VX to a target level of 20 parts per billion. Opponents have said the chemical stabilizer is mostly to blame.

Perma-Fix conducted its tests in June and July on about two gallons of VX hydrolysate sent from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. Army spokesman Jeffrey Brubaker confirmed that the VX in Aberdeen did not contain the chemical stabilizer.

Still, he said, “we believe it is comparable.”

Perma-Fix will conduct additional tests on a small sample of VX waste product from Newport to confirm that it can handle the by-product from stabilized VX as well, Brubaker said.

Opponents argued that the two gallons of hydrolysate Perma-Fix tested hardly reflects the hazards of shipping, storing, treating and discharging into the county’s waste water system some 5,000 gallons of hydrolysate per day.

They said the Perma-Fix study did not look at the presence of trace amounts of VX in the final discharge product, even though the international community has warned that VX can reform from waste products that are not completely broken down.

Further, opponents said Perma-Fix and the Army missed the opportunity to conduct tests on the odors emitted from the treatment process. Hydrolysate, which has a strong skunk-like odor, could increase complaints from nearby residents about sickening odors from the plant, opponents said.

Brubaker said the hydrolysate will be made odor-free through chemical oxidation, even before it is added to the plant’s giant bio-reactors.

The Army and the residents group are awaiting the results of a safety study by an independent expert hired by Montgomery County. Bruce Rittmann, a civil and environmental engineering professor from Northwestern University, is expected to release his findings by the end of the month.

Brubaker said the Army will decide whether to proceed with its disposal plan after hearing from the county’s expert.

The citizens’ group, however, said the county report will be invalid if based on the Perma-Fix study.

“Garbage in and garbage out,” said Mary Johnson, a member of the group. “You can’t apply these results to anything else.”