By JEFF MONTGOMERY
Staff reporter
05/13/2004

The Delaware River Basin Commission has barred the DuPont Co. from treating neutralized nerve agent wastes at a plant near the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge pending a review and ruling by the multistate agency.

Commission executive director Carol R. Collier notified the company by letter May 6 that DuPont is "not authorized" to begin the up to 4-million-gallon treatment job at its industrial wastewater plant in Deepwater, N.J., until the company seeks an amendment to a permit approved in 1991.

Collier also called on the company to explain how its current permit allowed the company to begin a $30 million project in 2002 that could eventually treat 7 million gallons of caustic wastewater from a mustard gas chemical weapon stockpile at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

The commission gave the company 30 days to acknowledge the ban on treating VX nerve agent wastes and to provide details on the mustard waste project, including an explanation of why DuPont believes its permit would allow the mustard byproduct treatment.

"We're saying we don't think military waste was contemplated" in the company's current commission approval, spokesman Robert Tudor said Wednesday. "And, in fact, we don't think this facility is necessarily that effective in treating VX waste."

DuPont said in a prepared statement Wednesday that executives were surprised by the commission's stand. The company said it consulted with the agency on the mustard project in 2002 without public objection.

"Last year, we proactively consulted with the DRBC regarding our potential assistance to the Army with its wastewater from Newport, Ind. Again, the DRBC did not raise any concerns at the time. Only in the last couple weeks has the DRBC voiced any concerns."

The commission oversees water supply and watershed environmental matters in the 13,500-square-mile area surrounding the Delaware and its tributaries, and issues permits for river water withdrawals, wells and wastewater discharges.

Last month, Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner and New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey opposed the VX waste treatment plan in a joint letter to the Army. Both cited findings that DuPont's commercial industrial wastewater treatment plant will let at least two chemical disposal byproducts pass mostly untreated into the river.

Other proposed new treatment plant ventures, including municipal sewage, infectious wastes and low-level radioactive wastes also will require commission review, Collier said. The company's permit renewal application identifies hundreds of new chemicals that could be discharged into the river compared with the previous application.

The riverside plant is in New Jersey, but treated wastes are discharged in Delaware's portion of the river. DuPont has described the operation, which has a 47.8-million-gallon-a-day capacity, as the largest commercial industrial wastewater plant in North America.

The commission last month said the Army proposal could cause DuPont to violate an important toxic pollution limit in its New Jersey permit, and said the plan requires additional testing for potential toxic effects on the river and aquatic life.

DuPont has said it already has all approvals needed to treat caustic wastewater from destruction of VX nerve agent stockpiled at a depot in Newport, Ind. Current operations are carried out under one of the most stringent water pollution control permits issued by New Jersey, the company said.

"We are confident that the facility can safely and effectively treat both the Aberdeen and Newport wastewaters," DuPont said.

The company, facing public and state regulatory opposition, recently announced it would postpone acceptance of an Army contract for the project while awaiting reviews by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency.

New Jersey said this week officials are investigating reports that DuPont may have treated 7,000 pounds of the VX-related wastes in the mid-1990s without notifying state officials. The state Department of Environmental Protection also has said that New Jersey plans to include new environmental protection requirements in DuPont's discharge permit regardless of the VX decision.

Kevin C. Donnelly, water resources director for Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said the commission's review could be time consuming.

The Army has said it wants to begin neutralizing nerve agents in Newport this summer, with final treatment at DuPont beginning as early as next year. Indiana regulators have said they want the Army to have a "clear path" to final treatment before the neutralization process begins.

Maya K. van Rossum, who directs the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, a multistate conservation group, said the Army has other options for the wastes, including treating the caustic wastewater on the same site as the neutralization operation.

"Here DuPont was pushing through this effort to make themselves more money and get more business, where in reality what they may have ended up doing is creating for themselves a very large, unanticipated headache," van Rossum said. "They have spotlighted themselves now as a facility in need of attention."