CARNEYS POINT, N.J. -- Several top New Jersey officials want the public to have more say on a U.S. Army plan to discharge the neutralized residue of a deadly Cold War-era nerve agent into the Delaware River.

U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine and U.S. Reps. Rob Andrews, D-Haddon Heights, and Frank LoBiondo, R-Vineland, sent a letter to the Department of the Army on Wednesday asking for more time for public comment on the plan to bring remnants of a stockpile of VX nerve agent in Indiana to a DuPont facility in Salem County.

Gov. James E. McGreevey made a similar request on Wednesday.

"Given the current apprehension and the uncertainty about the safety of this process I urge you to hold a public hearing as a first step to open a dialogue with the government and citizens of New Jersey on this important matter," McGreevey's letter said.

DuPont's Secure Environmental Treatment operations has placed a bid to dispose of the VX liquid. Army officials say the earliest a contract could be awarded is Jan. 21.

The nerve agent was produced before President Nixon issued a moratorium on chemical weapons production in 1969.

A single drop of liquid VX can cause paralysis and death within a few minutes. After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the government has sped up the disposal of such chemicals for fear they might be targeted in future attacks. More than 1,200 tons of the liquid are stored at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana, where it was produced.

Under the proposal that would bring it to New Jersey, the material would first be neutralized in Indiana by mixing it with hot water and sodium hydroxide. The resulting chemical would be hydrolysate, which scientists compare to liquid drain cleaner.

That substance would be hauled to New Jersey where DuPont would remove remaining chemicals from the liquid and dump what's left into the Delaware River.

Terry Arthur, a spokeswoman for the Newport depot, said the residue that would go into the river would be virtually pure water.

"What we want to make perfectly clear is that we are not shipping nerve agent for treatment anywhere," Arthur told the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill.

If DuPont gets the contract, the liquid would come in on trucks and trains late in the year. The disposal project would take about a year.

Previously, there was a plan to discharge the hydrolysate into sewers in Dayton Ohio, but a public backlash prompted the Army to give up on the idea.

Environmentalists have been gearing up already to contest the New Jersey disposal.

"This sounds like a very dangerous process with the possibility of harm to the river, to aquatic life in the river and to the people who depend on the river," Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network told the Courier-Post.