VX-laced liquid contained after Ind. spill

From staff and wire reports
06/12/2005

NEWPORT, Ind. -- About 30 gallons of a liquid containing VX spilled during a process to destroy the deadly nerve agent, but it was safely contained in a sealed area, the Army said Saturday.

The spill occurred Friday night at the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in western Indiana and workers started cleaning it up at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, spokeswoman Terry Arthur said.

The cause of the spill had not yet been determined, she said, and cleanup could take a full day.

VX is so deadly that less than a drop is enough to kill a person. But, Arthur said, none of the deadly agent escaped from the containment area, and there was no danger to workers or to the community. No one was injured, and community emergency officials were not notified, she said.

More than 250,000 gallons of the Cold War-era chemical weapon are stored at the depot about 30 miles north of Terre Haute. The neutralization process -- which is expected to take about two years -- produces a caustic chemical called hydrolysate.

The Army wants to transport the hydrolysate, which has been compared to liquid drain cleaner, to the DuPont Co.'s Chambers Works plant in Deepwater, N.J., for treatment and disposal in the Delaware River. The plan has sparked opposition in Delaware and New Jersey.

"What happens in Indiana is really the Army's role there," said DuPont spokesman Anthony Farina. "We have made it very clear from the beginning that we would only accept wastewater where there was no detectable VX in the wastewater."

The spill was the first since the Army started the treatment process May 5, Arthur said. It involved about 30 gallons of a mixture of VX and hydrolysate. The spill occurred while VX was being fed from a holding tank into a chemical reactor where the nerve agent is neutralized.

The liquid drained into a pit in the sealed concrete floor of the reactor area, named the Toxic Cubicle. It then went into a tank designed to hold spent decontamination liquid.

Workers wearing protective equipment entered the area Saturday as part of cleanup operations, the Army said.

The Toxic Cubicle was designed to prevent liquid or vapors from escaping to other parts of the facility or into the atmosphere. The area contains two reactors, each with a capacity of 1,000 gallons.

The facility has destroyed 2,894 gallons of VX so far. Arthur said project manager Jeff Brubaker had announced that the Army would take a week to pause the operation and review the work to date.

"This planned pause will allow the work force to focus on reviewing lessons learned and the implementation of resulting process improvements," the Army said.

Arthur said the pause also would provide time to determine what went wrong Friday.

Staff reporter Beth Miller and the Associated Press contributed to this article.