By JEFF MONTGOMERY
The News Journal
09/18/2004

A New Jersey congressman pressed Friday for immediate release of all results from a VX nerve weapon neutralization study in Maryland, citing reports of problems that he said undermine military claims to a "proven" process for treating a stockpile in Indiana.

South Jersey Democratic Rep. Rob. Andrews also recently urged the DuPont Co. to release details about the financing and conduct of company public opinion polling in the region. The survey work - confirmed by DuPont - focused in part on DuPont's plan to use its Chambers Works plant at the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge to treat wastewater from a 1,269-ton VX nerve agent stockpile in Newport, Ind.

Gov. Ruth Ann Minner and New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey already have urged the Army to abandon the proposal, in part over concerns that discharges from the Chambers Works could add to pollution in the Delaware River.

Officials at Newport reported earlier this week that materials in some stockpile containers may require up to a fourfold increase in processing time before all the nerve agent breaks down. A different Army spokesman told The News Journal in July that the change may amount to "longer cook times," after Newport managers reported that unacceptable levels of VX had survived small-scale trial runs.

"It has not been proven anywhere," Andrews said. "If anything, their own results suggest that it's not what it's cracked up to be."

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, called hydrolysate, left after processing the Newport stockpile.

Company officials and the Army have said they will await results of safety, health and environmental reviews by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency before proceeding with the shipping plan, expected to last from two to four years. The Army has estimated the overall cost of the project - which would destroy about 4 percent of the nation's stockpiled chemical weapons - at about $1.1 billion.

Army officials could not be reached Friday either at the Chemical Materials Agency in Aberdeen, Md., or at Newport.

Last week, Col. Jesse L. Barber, Army alternative technologies and approaches project manager, told Andrews by letter that the military would complete lab work in the fall, with results "available thereafter."

In the letter, Barber said the Army would start operations by neutralizing the portion of the stockpile that has undergone successful demonstrations.

Work will continue on requirements for other portions containing stabilizers that require additional processing time.

"At no time will caustic wastewater shipments containing detectable nerve agent leave the Newport, Indiana, site," Barber wrote. He also said that reports of unacceptably high VX levels reflected "incomplete, interim results."

DuPont officials in a statement late Friday did not discuss financing for the survey.

"DuPont conducted public assessments through an independent research organization as a way for the company to gauge the pulse of our community on this particular proposal so that sound decisions can be made regarding our Secure Environmental Treatment facility," company spokesman Anthony Farina said in a prepared statement.

"We've had reports that the questions suggested or implied that disposal of this hydrolysate at Chambers Works was necessary to fight terrorism and part of the war against al-Qaida," Andrews said. "That's what's known in the trade as a loaded question. If DuPont wants to ask such questions, this is America, but if they use Army money for any part of that, it's not appropriate."

Delaware's congressional delegation could not be reached late Friday for comment on Andrews' concerns. The CDC has not released a timetable for its review, although an official said recently that the agency had received "new information" about the project.

In a separate development on Friday, an official in Indiana said regulators in that state have been told that the Army is unlikely to attempt to start the process until after the first of the year.

Tom Linson, of the permits division of the Office of Land Quality for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, also said that state officials are trying to determine whether changes to the neutralization process proposed by the Army will require an additional permit review.

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