By JEFF MONTGOMERY
08/25/2004

New Army tests contradict earlier assurances there would be no deadly VX nerve agent remaining in waste byproducts that DuPont Co. wants to treat at its New Jersey plant and discharge into the Delaware River, environmental groups said Tuesday.

An Army spokesman confirmed Tuesday that recent laboratory tests found that VX residues exceeding 20 parts-per-billion survived a small-scale neutralization process despite predictions that all of the deadly toxin would break down.

"We're still going to be refining the process, and looking at ways to get it down to where we need to show that the agent has been destroyed," said Jeff Lindblad, a spokesman for the Army Chemical Materials Agency, based in Aberdeen, Md. "We are working toward getting it down to the 20 part-per-billion goal. It may require longer cook times."

DuPont said Tuesday it would not process the VX waste unless tests show the work could be done safely without harming the environment.

VX ranks among the nation's most deadly chemical weapons, with a single droplet potentially lethal. DuPont wants an Army contract that would send to its Chambers Works plant as much as 4 million gallons of wastewater left over after processing the 1,269-ton Army VX stockpile in Newport, Ind.

Newport's process would break down the chemical into a soup mostly containing a common industrial chemical with qualities similar to drain cleaner.

Delaware regulators earlier this year said striped bass and other aquatic life could be harmed if even minute traces of VX escaped into the Delaware River from DuPont's industrial wastewater plant in Deepwater, N.J. They also said DuPont's treatment would provide little more than dilution for other potentially harmful compounds in the VX wastewater.

"It's something of great concern because DuPont for so many months told us we weren't going to have any VX in the wastes," said John Kearney, who represents the Clean Air Council in Delaware. "This says that the VX is there and that it may be over even what the Army said is its limit."

DuPont spokesman Anthony Farina said in a statement Tuesday, "We will only be involved in this proposal if it can be accomplished safely and effectively without any adverse impact on our community or the environment."

He also said: "No nerve agent will be transported or treated at Chambers Works. The agent will be destroyed at the Army's site in Newport, Ind., so that there is no detectable agent in the resulting wastewater."

Better answers sought

Although DuPont's plant is in New Jersey, its discharge pipe empties into the river well inside Delaware. New Jersey officials are reviewing the VX wastewater project, but also are considering a new permit that could significantly expand the wastes eligible for processing at the plant.

Lindblad described 20 parts per billion as the lowest level that VX can be detected, and said that level was four times lower than the concentration an Army health center found to be harmless to humans. He said he was unable to provide detailed results from the latest testing, carried out at Aberdeen.

"I think regulators on both sides of the river and the public are going to want to see what the absolute level of VX residual is, not a theoretical, calculated value," said Kevin C. Donnelly, water resources director for Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

"I think we deserve that. I think people who live along and work on and use the river deserve it. The ecology of the river demands it," Donnelly said.

Donnelly said Delaware officials want other, finer testing methods considered for the wastewater, and more information on environmental risks.

"We're saying: Look harder," Donnelly said.

Weighing potential risks

The Army expects to begin full-scale neutralization between October and December. Officials had hoped to start sooner, but are fixing dozens of safety, procedural and administrative problems found earlier this year during a test run using water.

Delaware officials are concerned that two other chemical byproducts, ethyl methylphosphonic acid and methylphosphonic acid, could pose a threat to aquatic life and could promote algal blooms in the river. The blooms would deplete oxygen levels in the water, potentially further endangering fish.

Earlier this year, DuPont said it would await a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention review of project risks before it would decide whether to proceed with the contract. CDC spokeswoman Stephanie Creel could not say Tuesday if the CDC or related Environmental Protection Agency review considered the possibility of VX reaching DuPont's plant, which is authorized to discharge up to 54 million gallons of treated industrial wastewater daily.

DuPont already has a contract to treat millions of gallons of wastewater from the neutralization of a different type of chemical weapon, a blister-forming mustard agent stockpiled at Aberdeen.

Delaware Nature Society member Seth Ross, who helped the group research DuPont's plan, said the Army's inability to completely destroy the nerve agent was to be expected. Newport has more than 1,600 1-ton containers of VX, some with different and complex mixtures of stabilizing agents.

"This kind of reinforces my concern that on one of these batches, one time, things will not go right. It might be an equipment or instrument failure, and a lot more that 20 ppb will get into the tank truck and go over the road," Ross said. "I think they should do the destruction out there. It just doesn't make sense to ship it across the country."

Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.