Sometimes even the U.S. military needs to listen.

Army officers have said repeatedly that the proposed method of disposing of more than 250,000 gallons of VX nerve agent stored at the Newport Chemical Depot in western Indiana is safe. Those claims are most likely correct.

But political realities suggest that the Army needs to reconsider its approach.

Military officials are in the process of turning Newport's VX into a highly caustic wastewater solution called hydrolysate. They then plan to truck 4 million gallons of hydrolysate from Newport to DuPont's Deepwater, N.J., plant where it will be further treated and dumped into the Delaware River.

But the governor of New Jersey and environmentalists in several states have vowed to fight the proposal. Tracy Carluccio, director of special projects for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group, has pledged to file a lawsuit and fight the disposal plan "to the bitter end." Environmental groups from six states recently renewed their call for the Army to dispose of VX on site.

At the same time, about 200,000 gallons of hydrolysate are piling up at Newport -- about a third of the facility's storage capacity. And a 2012 deadline to rid the nation of its chemical warfare stockpile, set in an international treaty, grows closer.

Even if a government report expected out this month concludes that dumping the wastewater in the Delaware River is safe, that's not apt to ease fears about trucking 4 million gallons of a corrosive and potentially flammable substance through a congested part of the country.

Nor is it likely to halt the lawsuits, which will cause even longer delays in finally ridding Newport of VX.

Technology exists to use a treatment process called supercritical water oxidation to turn the wastewater into a solid, which could be disposed of in a landfill on site. Newport area residents, who have lived with the presence of VX in their midst for decades, have repeatedly urged on-site destruction of the agent and its byproducts.

If the job can be completed safely at Newport, the Army should reconsider its plans and keep the problem confined.