A shake-up in the nation's chemical-weapons destruction program could send more toxic military waste shipments to a DuPont Co. treatment plant in New Jersey, adding to the plant's daily discharges into the Delaware River.

DuPont's Chambers Works wastewater plant near the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge already has treated millions of gallons of partially destroyed mustard agent from a stockpile in Maryland and is fighting for the right to treat wastewater from a nerve agent stockpile in Indiana.

Now the Defense Department may turn to DuPont to treat the wastes from mustard, VX and sarin nerve agent supplies from two other chemical weapon stockpiles. The prospect surfaced during a re-evaluation of chemical weapon destruction plans at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky and Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado.

The governors of Delaware and New Jersey are opposing any VX wastewater shipments to Chambers Works while awaiting a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC study, requested by Delaware and New Jersey congressional members, examined environmental, public health and transportation risks posed by the Army's plan to ship wastewater to Chambers Works.

Some groups and local residents say they will oppose any moves to increase DuPont's wastewater discharges to the Delaware River regardless of the report's findings. The plant in Deepwater now discharges about 17 million gallons of treated chemical and municipal waste daily, sending hundreds of chemicals from industrial sites around the country into the river.

"This river hasn't been fit for years," said Marvin Powers, a retired autoworker who lives in Pennsville, N.J., near the river and just south of Chambers Works.

"I don't think you should dump anything else in that water," Powers said. "They say that a man should only eat one fish out of there a year as it is, and a woman shouldn't eat any. It's only going to get worse if they put more in the river from that plant."

Citizen advisory group members at Pueblo and Blue Grass said Defense Department officials have mentioned DuPont's Deepwater plant repeatedly during meetings in Colorado and Kentucky.

"New Jersey seems to be the site that it would have to be shipped to," said John Klomp, a Colorado resident who chairs a local advisory panel to the Pueblo site. "Our major concern is that it would face immediate litigation, even though it might be done reasonably and maybe even more cheaply [in New Jersey] than on site."

Mustard agent

DuPont and the Army are awaiting a key health and environmental safety report on company plans to treat VX nerve agent wastes from Newport, Ind., at the sprawling Chambers Works complex.

The plant already has handled millions of gallons of caustic wastewater left over from the neutralization of blister-forming mustard agent from a storage site in Aberdeen, Md., DeWeese said, "and that's what is at Pueblo, mustard agent." Mustard agents are sulfur-based tissue irritants that can burn and kill, even after passing exposure to them.

Blue Grass also stores weapons containing mustard agent, along with bombs and rockets loaded with VX and the nerve agent sarin, a military weapon once used by members of a Japanese cult in an attack on a subway station.

The Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program has direct responsibility for managing weapon disposal at Blue Grass and Pueblo. The Army's Chemical Materials Agency, based at Aberdeen, oversees the other six stockpiles in the continental United States and is the only agency directly involved with DuPont's plant in New Jersey.

A DuPont official said he was unaware of any other proposals and said the company is concentrating on preparations for the Newport waste. The work could earn DuPont millions of dollars.

"We are squarely focused on the Newport proposal, make no mistake about that," said Anthony Farina, a DuPont spokesman. "I can categorically tell you that we have not been approached" about taking wastes from other sites. "Our understanding is the Army has contracts in place for processes that do not involve us."

New effort

The Colorado and Kentucky proposals are part of a new government push to get control of a national chemical weapon disposal effort first approved by Congress in 1986.

A subsequent international treaty, signed in 1997, obliged the nation to destroy all 31,500 tons of its stockpile within 10 years. Projected costs for all nine destruction sites have ballooned from $14.6 billion in 1998 to more than $32 billion, while deadlines have been pushed to 2012 and beyond.

DuPont's plant became prominent in Army weapon disposal plans after 9/11. Wary of potential terrorist attacks, defense officials called for faster destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles, an order that sent military planners in search of ways to treat waste byproducts without having to build new facilities.

The cost- and time-saving push arrived at Blue Grass and Pueblo earlier this year when congressional budget cutters proposed a $90 million cut in spending next year for construction of neutralization plants. Resulting delays, officials said, could allow time to study lower-cost alternatives for wastewater disposal at both sites, including the use of DuPont's New Jersey plant.

"There is the potential to save $60 million" by shipping wastewater from Kentucky and Colorado to New Jersey," said Craig Williams, who directs the Chemical Weapons Working Group, an organization that seeks the safe destruction of chemical weapons. But Williams warned that the change also could wind up costing the government $80 million, based on some estimates, instead of saving taxpayers money.

The Pueblo and Blue Grass sites combined account for about 10 percent of the nation's total stockpile of chemical weapons. DuPont's treatment of Aberdeen wastewater has eliminated about 5 percent of the U.S. total. The Newport Chemical Depot VX bulk supply represents another 4 percent of the national stockpile.

Some environmental group members in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have long warned that the Indiana project would clear a path for other military disposal projects at Chambers Works, site of the nation's largest commercial industrial wastewater plant.

"Once the floodgates are open, we're afraid we won't be able to stop it," said Tracy Carluccio, a spokeswoman for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network That regional environmental group opposes DuPont plans to take wastes from Newport.

"It's always been my sense that DuPont would not be hanging out the way they are just for Newport," said Alan Muller, who directs the environmental group Green Delaware. "I think they've always been planning to be on the gravy train for chemical weapon residue dumping from all over the country."

'Love Canal'

John N. Marshall, a recreational fisherman who lives near Middletown, said recently that the Army and DuPont are taking too many chances with the river.

"We don't want the Delaware River and Delaware Bay turning into a Love Canal. We've got a pretty good mess on our hands already, and that's why people are looking at this VX" from Newport, Marshall said. "People realize that there's a lot more of this stuff out there."

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Rob Andrews predicted public scrutiny eventually will block any more chemical weapon wastes from reaching DuPont's plant. Andrews and two other South Jersey congressmen recently drafted a measure calling for an independent review of costs and benefits for the Newport project.

"I don't believe the VX will ever come to New Jersey, and the same would apply to any chemical weapon byproduct from Kentucky or Colorado," Andrews said. "I think the DuPont project will never happen, nor do I think it should."

But Bill Pehlivanian, deputy Kentucky and Colorado program manager for the Defense Department's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program, said wastes from both sites "could be shipped off site."

"That's the flexibility that we've built into the redesign," Pehlivanian said.

Earlier action got little attention

DuPont's commercial industrial wastewater plant encountered little public attention or opposition when it agreed to treat 4 million gallons of wastewater from Aberdeen's mustard agent neutralization.

Pueblo has 2,611 tons of mustard agent. while the VX and sarin nerve agents at Blue Grass, based on phosphorus compounds, require different treatment processes and generate more hazardous solid wastes that DuPont would have to bury at its hazardous waste landfill at Chambers Works.

Managers at both sites chose a destruction process that uses hot water and a caustic chemical used in drain cleaner to break down bulk chemical weapons. It's the same process used for Aberdeen's mustard agent and Newport's VX.

DuPont had nearly completed work on the Aberdeen disposal project when the Army recruited the company for another deal to treat 2 million to 4 million gallons of treated wastewater from Newport

"We are concerned with DuPont becoming the national processing plant for various chemical weapons," said Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. "We have attorneys and we'll do whatever is necessary, including legal action, to make sure that this stuff doesn't come here."

Military officials have declined to say how much the company has received so far or could make on the Newport project, citing procurement rules.

Some difficulty

Government and company officials have stumbled repeatedly while seeking approvals for the Newport project.

Army managers attempted to use a small, limited circulation daily paper in Salem, N.J., to post required public notices for the plan, a choice that critics immediately branded as insincere. Others charged the Army with publishing confusing or misleading claims about the effectiveness of its VX neutralization process.

In one case late last year, contractors discovered that the neutralization process was generating a flammable byproduct, contradicting repeated assurances that tankerloads of waste liquids were stable and safe to haul on public highways.

Officials quickly changed the treatment system and reworked batches of waste that already had passed through the process. About 25 percent of Newport's VX has been neutralized, with wastes sent to temporary storage tanks pending a decision on use of DuPont's plant.

"It can potentially sit there for a long time," Muller said. "There's clearly a credible scenario here for not sending any off-site."

DuPont already has overhauled its original treatment plan for VX after state scientists in Delaware found that the majority of some chemicals would have passed untreated into the Delaware River from Chambers Works. The Environmental Protection Agency later reported DuPont's changes had eased concerns about ecological harm from the project; a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assessment is due next month.

More recently, an Army consultant declared that Chambers Works could save taxpayers $347 million while shaving nearly five years off the time needed to destroy Newport's stockpile. Key facts -- including the cost of DuPont's services -- were omitted, prompting the calls from three New Jersey congressmen for an independent study.

News Journal file/FRED COMEGYS

DuPont's Chambers Works plant in New Jersey
discharges about 17 million gallons of treated chemical
and municipal waste daily.

Multimedia
• GRAPHIC: Stockpiled weapons around the U.S. | pdf file

On the web
• Destroying chemical weapons: The Delaware River debate
• DuPont

HISTORY

Chambers Works has handled millions of gallons of
caustic wastewater from the neutralization of mustard
agent at Aberdeen, Md.

DuPont is fighting for the right to treat wastewater
from a VX stockpile in Indiana.