As destruction of the deadly Cold War-era nerve agent VX continues in western Indiana, the Army faces growing resistance to a plan to send the byproduct to New Jersey for treatment.

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives inserted an amendment in a Defense Department authorization bill blocking shipment of the VX byproduct, called hydrolysate, to a DuPont Co. facility in New Jersey -- where it would be treated and discharged into the Delaware River -- until federal health and environmental officials agreed it was safe.

And last week, acting New Jersey Gov. Richard J. Codey ordered the state Department of Environmental Protection to issue a new draft permit to DuPont that would prevent the facility from accepting the nerve agent byproduct.

Codey cited an April report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that said small traces of the nerve agent left in the discharged wastewater could harm fish.

But Army officials at the Newport Chemical Depot -- where about 1,440 gallons of the more than 250,000 gallons of VX stored there have been successfully neutralized -- said they hoped new information would convince the CDC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the DuPont process was safe.