Defense Environment Alert

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

Vol. 14, No. 19

September 19, 2006

DOD SEEKS TO AX CALL FOR GAO REVIEW OF AGENT-WASTE TRANSPORT STUDY

The Defense Department is urging House and Senate defense committee leaders to eliminate language from the pending defense authorization bill that would prohibit the Army from transporting chemical agent waste from an Indiana site to a commercial disposal facility in New Jersey until congressional auditors review the Army's disposal decisions.

DOD says the measure will stall chemical weapons destruction.

The Defense Department outlined its plea in an appeal sent to the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees Aug. 21. The appeal is one of many the Pentagon has sent to the committees over the past several weeks, seeking changes to the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization bill as lawmakers complete House-Senate conferencing on the legislation. The appeal is available on InsideEPA. com. Seepage 2 for details.

In a statement, Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ) - the sponsor of the measure - said it was "unfortunate that the Pentagon would actively lobby against an independent analysis of a proposal that is so controversial." He noted the Army's failure to give Congress an analysis of the costs of alternative proposals for treating the agent waste. "That is why Congress had no choice but to ask the [Government Accountability Office (GAO)] to conduct this cost benefit analysis and why the language authorizing a GAO study is included in this bill." One informed congressional source says lawmakers on the conference committee could wrap up their work as early as this week.

At issue is a controversial Army bid to send neutralized nerve agent from its Newport, IN, Chemical Depot off-site to a DuPont commercial disposal facility in New Jersey for secondary treatment and disposal in the Delaware River.

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) recently found the Army's plan would pose no human health risks (Defense Environment Alert, Aug. 8, p 11). That followed a finding in 2005 that the transportation of the neutralized agent, known as hydrolysate, posed no health or safety risk and an EPA determination in February 2006 that the Army and facility operator - DuPont - had addressed previous concerns satisfactorily.

But opposition among state and congressional officials and citizens has continued, with critics dismissing the recent CDC results. As part of the effort to halt the plan, Andrews inserted language into the House version of the authorization bill requiring GAO to review the Army's cost-benefit analysis of off-site versus on-site treatment of neutralized chemical agent stemming from the Newport depot.

Under the pending language, the report is due Dec. 1. The measure would bar the Army from transporting the neutralized agent off-site until 60 days after GAO submits the report to Congress.

However, DOD argues in the Aug. 21 appeal that since the EPA and 2005 CDC reviews were "positive," the military "should be able to continue with plans to pursue environmental permits and contract awards to ship, treat, and dispose of the hydrolysate off-site%"

Any further delays will make it impossible for the Newport disposal project to help the military achieve a 45 percent destruction milestone under the Chemical Weapons Convention by Dec. 31, 2007, it says. The Army in late August announced it has destroyed "more than 39 percent of the total amount of agent, by weight, in the original stockpile," according to an Army Chemical Materials Agency press release.

DOD in the appeal says it "made the decision to utilize off-site commercial treatment, storage, and disposal facilities for treatment and disposal of hydrolysate from [Newport] after the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, to expedite the elimination of the chemical weapons stockpile based on a risk analysis for an incident occurring in [Newport] storage, a cost-benefit analysis, and recommendations from the National Research Council on hydrolysate post-treatment."

DOD also notes that it has complied with previous congressional requests for reviews and assessments, including the CDC and EPA reviews.

A spokesman for the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a long-time watchdog of the chemical demilitarization program, says that if the military's primary motivation in this case is to cut costs, then "it stands to reason" there should be an independent entity to review that cost analysis. This source notes that the Army's cost analysis is dated April 2006, despite it making a decision years ago to ship the hydrolysate off-site. Further, the source notes that the risk of the weapons is being eliminated as the chemical agent is neutralized at Newport.

The decision to ship off-site "was an arbitrary, knee-jerk decision" made after 9/11 because some thought it would save time, and therefore money, the source says.