Newport -- Workers have eliminated the flammability of wastewater produced during the destruction of a deadly nerve agent, and disposal of the VX was expected to resume this week.

Still, officials cautioned that the process could be delayed again at the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in western Indiana.

In May, workers at the Newport depot, 30 miles north of Terre Haute, began destroying more than 250,000 gallons of VX using a chemical neutralization process.

Officials halted the project in June after a leak caused about 30 gallons of VX and caustic wastewater called hydrolysate to spill into a sealed area.

Later testing on samples from about 3,300 gallons of hydrolysate found flammability levels much higher than what laboratory tests predicted.

Jeffrey Brubaker, site project manager at the facility, said operators adjusted the temperature and used nitrogen to make the wastewater nonflammable.