By JEFF MONTGOMERY
Staff reporter
05/25/2004

DuPont Co. can continue treating mustard gas disposal waste at its plant near the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, but treatment of wastes from a far more toxic military agent is barred pending a full permit review, according to the Delaware River Basin Commission.

A commission official also said Monday the agency may support new limits on DuPont's commercial industrial wastewater plant in Deepwater, N.J. Those restrictions could target long-term, chronic toxic risks posed by discharges from the company's Chambers Works Secure Environmental Treatment Unit.

DuPont said in a statement Monday that the company had consulted with the commission before starting the mustard gas waste treatment project, and said the company can treat both compounds safely.

The Army wants to give DuPont a contract to treat up to 4 million gallons of caustic wastewater from the destruction of a 1,269-ton VX nerve agent stockpile in Newport, Ind. The company has said it will not accept the Army contract until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Environmental Protection Agency complete a separate environmental and health review.

"They're saying they're going to assure that they can document ... it's not going to have an adverse effect on the river," commission spokesman Robert Tudor said.

DuPont already has treated thousands of pounds of VX wastes, partly under rules that allow some states to remove special handling restrictions from wastes that other states consider acutely hazardous.

Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control earlier this year said two waste compounds from VX disposal would pass nearly untreated to the Delaware River and require further study.

DuPont already is treating caustic wastewater from the disposal of blister-forming mustard gas stockpiles at Aberdeen, Md. Commission Executive Director Carol. R. Collier said in a May 21 letter that DuPont had recently provided research showing that the 7-million-gallon mustard gas waste disposal project was not harming water quality.