Defense Environment Alert
June 3, 2003

OHIO CONGRESSMAN SAYS ARMY FAILING TO HONOR COMMUNITY'S WILL

An Ohio congressman is continuing to press the Army to respect his community's opposition to treating secondary waste from a nerve agent neutralization plant in Indiana, saying the Army has failed in its public outreach efforts and urging the military "to honor the will of this community and its elected representatives."

But an Army spokesman says the military is continuing to work closely with Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) on the issue. "We're all working together."

And the Army's decision to use the Perma-Fix facility in Dayton, OH, to treat hydrolysate from the bulk VX agent stockpiled in Newport, IN, came after a year-long national search and was based on the facility's technical capability, environmental compliance history and community outreach ability, among other factors, the spokesman says.

At issue is the Army's decision to neutralize the VX onsite in Newport and then send the resulting liquid, or hydrolysate, to the Dayton Perma-Fix facility for additional treatment using microscopic organisms that will break down the hydroylsate into harmless byproducts.

But Dayton area residents and local government officials are opposing the decision, worried the city will become a dumping ground for chemical weapons waste and raising environmental justice concerns over the location of the Perma-Fix facility in a predominantly poor and minority community.

In a May 20 letter to a community group opposing the Army's plan, Citizens for the Responsible Destruction of Chemical Weapons, Turner says he recently relayed to Army acquisition chief Claude Bolton his "continued disappointment with the Army's lack of response to many of our public safety and health concerns, as well as their failure to clearly define what constitutes 'public acceptance' or 'rejection' in their process." The letter is available on InsideEPA. com. Seepage 2 for details.

Turner says he "once again called on the Army to honor the will of this community and its elected representatives, who have demonstrated unwavering public opposition to the transport and disposal of chemical nerve agent VX in our community." He says the military's public outreach effort "has completely failed" as evidenced by the passage of six resolutions opposing the decision. Several local governments have approved resolutions against the plan, according to local news reports, and Turner argued in an earlier letter to Army officials that Jefferson Township's opposition, where the facility is actually located, should be enough to nullify the contract.

"I will continue to work in Washington to hold the Army accountable and remain relentless in my call to the Army to favorably recognize the will of this community," Turner writes to the community group.

The Army spokesman says the military's search for a commercial plant to handle the hydrolysate began in earnest in September 2001, after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, with the goal of speeding up the destruction of chemical weapons at all eight domestic stockpile sites. Initially, the Army identified more than 100 facilities that might be able to treat the Newport hydrolysate, the spokesman says.

By July 2002, the Army had whittled this list down to I I sites, based on a request for proposals that sought specific technical capabilities, environmental compliance, safety history and other factors, the spokesman says. The Army received only four proposals last fall and officially selected Perma-Fix last December, he says.

Construction on the Newport treatment facility is just about finished, and the Army expects to begin neutralization efforts by October, the spokesman says. The neutralization process should take about six months, after which the Army will conduct additional treatment of the ton containers that had stored the agent, he says.