Defense Environment Alert

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

Vol. 15, No. 3

February 6, 2007

ARMY TO FOLLOW GAO ADVICE ON NEW COST ANALYSIS FOR VX WASTE

Findings and recommendations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about a dropped Army plan to treat nerve agent waste at a DuPont-owned facility are expected to play a role in the Army's yet-to-be-named waste treatment plan to replace the DuPont plan.  The Army must treat millions of gallons of wastewater resulting from the neutralization of VX nerve agent at its Newport, IN, facilty.

In a Jan. 26 report, GAO, which was tasked by congressional defense authorizers to conduct the study, foundthe Army's underlying cost estimates for the DuPont plan "were not reliable." GAO, in the report, questions the Army's conclusions that its DuPont treatment plan had significant cost advantages to three other alternatives. The report comes shortly after DuPont pulled out of the Army waste treatment contract.

GAO revised the report prior to its release to reflect DuPont's Jan. 5 decision to drop out. of the plan. The congressional investigative arm calls on the Army to conduct a new cost-benefit analysis that relies on best practices established by the White House Office of Management & Budget and professional cost analysts.

Use of these practices should ensure that the Army's data and conclusions in evaluating technology options are "comprehensive, traceable, accurate, and credible," GAO says. The report is available on InsideEPA. com. Seepage 2 for details.

The Army plans to perform the new cost-benefit analysis when it restarts its evaluation of potential technologies to treat the nerve agent waste, according to a spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), which oversees much of the chemical weapons destruction program. The Army is currently neutralizing the VX nerve agent stockpiled at its Newport site and storing it on-site until it decides on a secondary treatment option for the waste and final disposal. When all of the agent is neutralized, the Army will have about 4 million gallons of wastewater in need of treatment.

DuPont's Chamber Works facility in Deepwater, NJ, was the second off-site facility the Army had chosen to treat the VX waste, following a failed attempt to send it to a facility in Dayton, OH. In both cases, public opposition was strong. Activists, New Jersey politicians and others argued it should be addressed on-site, rather than shipped off-site for further treatment. DuPont pulled out shortly after environmentalists filed a lawsuit challenging the Army's latest transport and treatment plan, saying it was facing an approval process that would "be lengthy and arduous."

The Army now plans to consider both on-site and off-site options for secondary treatment, according to the CMA spokesman. It sought off-site treatment at a commercial facility in 2002 when, in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, it adopted an accelerated disposal plan for its stockpiles of bulk chemical agent. The Army has claimed that on-site treatment options for the Newport waste would be much more expensive than off-site options with costs at least $147 million higher to as much as $347 million higher.

The remaining options are chemical oxidation, wet air oxidation, super critical water oxidation and incineration, the CMA spokesman says. When the Army solicited companies for proposals to treat off-site several years ago, it received responses from just four companies. Two of those were biodegradation methods, but both of those companies - DuPont in New Jersey and Perma-Fix in Dayton, OH - are now out of the running, while the remaining two were proposing to use incineration, a long controversial method in the chemical demilitarization arena.

Congressional critics, including Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), called for the GAO investigation. In a statement released after the report came out, Andrews said he believes the report "played a significant role in shaping DuPont's decision to cancel" its plans. He promised to work with the Army to find an alternative waste disposal solution. A staffer for his office did not have any details on how he planned to work with the Army.

Activists have long alleged off-site treatment raises chemical security, environmental and worker safety risks, and continue to advocate on-site treatment.