Defense Environment Alert
an exclusive biweekly report on defense policies for cleanup, compliance and pollution prevention


Vol. 13, No. 1--January 11, 2005

WASTEWATER TREATABILITY TESTS DELAYING ARMY'S VX NEUTRALIZATION

The Army's destruction of VX nerve agent at its Newport, IN, facility is being delayed while scientists at chemicals giant DuPont evaluate new secondary waste treatment methods aimed at lowering phosphate discharges into the environment, according to regulatory and industry sources.

These treatability tests are holding up a critical report from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) on the Army's plan to treat the neutralized wastewater at DuPont's commercial wastewater treatment facility in southern New Jersey, the sources say.

The CDC is scrutinizing the Army's plan to destroy and dispose of 1,269 tons of VX nerve agent stockpiled at its chemical weapons depot in Newport. The process is expected to produce 4 million gallons of caustic wastewater known as hydrolysate, which the Army then plans to transport to DuPont's Chamber Works Plant in Deepwater, NJ.

The hydrolysate is slated to be retreated there and eventually discharged into the Delaware River.

While the Newport plant is ready to proceed with the VX neutralization, it is holding off until it sees the CDC report's findings, an Army spokesman says. Every day of delay costs about $360,000 to operate the facility, he says.

Public anxiety over the Army's VX destruction plan prompted several Congress members from New Jersey and Delaware to request the CDC report. The Army agreed to wait for the CDC to finish before moving ahead, but had expected the report by last summer, the spokesman says.

Environmental organizations and Delaware River Basin-area residents have condemned the plan. Among their chief concerns is that DuPont's hydrolysate treatment will not adequately remove phosphate compounds known as ethyl methylphosphonic acid (EMPA) and methylphosphonic acid (MPA). They fear these phosphates will pollute the Delaware River, threatening aquatic life and drinking water. Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D) and then-New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey (D) raised similar concerns about the two phosphate compounds in a letter to the Army last April (Defense Environment Alert, April 20, 2004, pl2).

To quell these fears, DuPont scientists last year began working on new technology aimed at strengthening the plant's ability to remove EMPA and MPA, a company source says. According to published reports, the new technology is based upon two methods: the first is an oxidation treatment that would convert EMPA into MPA, and then remove the MPA by chemical precipitation. DuPont would then dispose of the MPA solids in a landfill. The second method involves introducing an isolated strain of bacteria to the wastewater to remove the phosphates.

Another DuPont source says the treatability study on the new methods is ongoing, and there is no estimate for when it will be complete.

An official at the Delaware River Basin Commission, an interstate regulatory organization, says the CDC is waiting for these treatability results before it issues its report. The first DuPont source confirms this. A CDC spokeswoman refused to comment directly, except to say the report was "in clearance."

No matter what the CDC concludes, environmentalists and politicians are promising a tough fight to stop the VX hydrolysate from leaving the Newport facility. If the CDC gives the Army the green light, Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ), whose district lies along the Delaware River, will likely try to take legislative action to stop it, his press spokesman says.

The Army has struggled in its effort to treat secondary waste from the Indiana plant off-site. Local officials in Ohio in 2003 thwarted a plan to send the hydrolysate to a facility there, in large part because of local citizen opposition (Defense Environment Alert, Oct. 21, 2003, p5). Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Army decided to treat the hydrolysate off-site rather than in Newport as part of an effort to speed destruction of the agent.

Andrews has asked the Army to consider alternative technologies that could safely destroy and dispose of the VX nerve agent in Newport, Andrews' spokesman says, who claims that the Army has paid little attention to those requests. .

But a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency denies this claim. "We are not aware of any specific alternatives that Congressman Andrews has proposed," he says.

The Army spokesman adds that it would take two or more years for the Army to evaluate any alternatives to the current plan. The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention mandates that the United States and other parties to the treaty destroy all chemical weapons stockpiles by 2007, with no extensions past 2012.