Defense Environment Alert
February 26, 2002

SECURITY CONCERNS PROMPT ARMY TO TEST VX NEUTRALIZATION METHOD

Prompted by concerns over potential terrorism threats, the Army is proposing to test, on a small-scale, neutralization of the nerve agent VX in bulk containers at its experimental Utah facility. The testing is part of the Army's effort since the Sept. I I attacks to examine ways to expedite disposal of the U.S. stockpile of chemical munitions.

A public notice recently issued by the Army indicates its Deseret Chemical Depot has submitted a request to conduct neutralization testing on ton containers that store the chemical agent VX. The state received the request Feb. 7, a state source says. The neutralization process would consist of adding water to the agent in the ton containers and determining whether that addition neutralized the agent to the point at which it meets agent destruction standards in the Chemical Weapons Convention, the international treaty that governs destruction of countries' stockpiles, according to a spokesman for the Army's program manager for chemical demilitarization (PMCD).

"This testing is being conducted in the interest of national security and to establish the efficacy of this treatment process for use with VX ton containers," the public notice says. The PMCD spokesman says the September attacks have prompted the Army to reexamine its risk assessments for the chemical weapons stockpile sites. The source notes that neutralizing the agent would lessen the current risk of the ton containers. While the VX hydrolysate that would result would still pose hazards, those hazards wouldn't reach the same level as nerve agent alone, according to the source. The source says the Army is examining any option that allows it to lower the risk of storing the weapons.

The Army plans to test the method on just a few ton containers, each of which weighs about 1,500 pounds, the source says. The Utah facility that would conduct the neutralization tests is the Oquirhh Mountain facility, formerly known as the Chemical Agent Munitions Disposal System, which has frequently been used to test out destruction methods, according to the PMCD spokesman.

The request by the depot to Utah's Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste asks for modification of its hazardous waste storage permit and is undergoing a 60-day public comment period. Comments are due by April 12, and a public information. meeting on the request is scheduled for March 6 in Tooele, UT.

The PMCD spokesman doesn't know how the VX hydrolysate -- a secondary waste stream -- would be dealt with following the neutralization treatment at the Utah facility. The Army has had tremendous problems in the scale-up of a technology, supercritical water oxidation, to treat VX hydrolysate at its Newport, IN, site, the source says. This source says the alternatives to that technology are either deep well injection or incineration of the hydrolysate.

The fact that the Army is considering neutralizing bulk VX is "very encouraging," says a spokesman for the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a citizens coalition that advocates non-incineration technologies for the destruction of chemical weapons. But the PMCD spokesman says that the Army's decision to conduct the tests "in no way means" it will reverse its original plan to incinerate the bulk VX stored at Tooele, UT. The only other place the Army has ton containers of VX besides Newport is at its Tooele facility. The Tooele site has 640 ton containers, and the Army as of right now still plans to incinerate those containers, the PMCD spokesman says. The incinerator at Tooele in the next few months will change over to burning VX agent items; it is now finishing up its campaign to incinerate GB agent, according to the spokesman.