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Guided by the mandates of an international treaty, as well as concerns about terrorism, the U.S. Army says it has devised a safe plan to begin transforming VX into neutralized wastewater at the Newport Chemical Depot.
Under the plan, the wastewater would be transported in hundreds of shipments over at least two years to southern New Jersey, where the DuPont chemical company would perform further treatments on the wastewater before dumping it into the Delaware River.
More public hearings and debates remain, but the Army hopes to make a final decision this summer.
"It's safe -- that's it," said Jeff Lindblad, a spokesman with the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency. "It can be treated safely for the environment and the public."
For Indiana, the plan offers the potential to end more than three decades in the VX storage business. For the nation, it offers the chance to reduce a chemical weapons stockpile seen as a potential terrorist target.
But on the heels of a failed plan to ship Indiana's VX wastewater to Ohio, top New Jersey officials and environmentalists aren't ready to buy in.
New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey and New Jersey's environmental commissioner have expressed concerns in recent weeks. And at a public meeting on the issue last week, U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat, issued a statement saying he would try to kill the plan.
"We must consider whether VX can reconstitute itself, what would happen if an accident occurred on the highway when the VX components are transported from Indiana to South Jersey, and most importantly, what the risks are of dumping these foreign and once deadly remnants into the Delaware River," Andrews said.
The debate comes more than 35 years after the government ceased production of VX as part of a ban on producing chemical weapons. A 1969 moratorium on shipping VX left the Newport Chemical Depot, the sole manufacturer of VX for the United States in the 1960s, with 1,269 tons of the nerve agent on its hands.
"The last two batches made here but not shipped have been trapped here since the 1960s," said Terry Arthur, public affairs officer for the depot.
The U.S. is facing a deadline to destroy its chemical weapons by 2007, under the international Chemical Weapons Convention treaty. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government has accelerated its plans. "What we want to do is destroy it," Arthur said.
To do that, the Army is proposing a process that involves mixing the VX -- compared in look and form to motor oil -- with hot sodium hydroxide and water at about 194 degrees. That mixing leaves a corrosive wastewater that DuPont chemical engineer Todd Owens said is no worse than what is commonly dealt with at waste treatment facilities. "It has no risk to the Delaware River or the people who live near the Delaware River," he said.
But New Jersey environmentalist Dennis Schvejda pointed to the state's long history of environmental problems.
"In a nutshell," he said, "people are afraid."
Call Star reporter Matthew Tully at (317) 444-6033.