138th Year... and still on the job!	Thursday March 16, 2006

Indiana toxic waste leak halts nerve gas reactor

The accidental spill of about 300 gallons of wastewater at an Indiana chemical weapons disposal plant bolsters Pueblo's contention that the stuff should be treated on site and not stored.

This week, an Army contractor halted destruction of the deadly nerve agent VX after the hydrolysate leaked from one of the chemical reactors at the Newport, Ind., Chemical Depot.

John Klomp, chairman of the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission, said that concerns over hydrolysate spills point to "one of the great dangers of keeping the hydrolysate on site. You've got a lot of toxic waste sitting there. This is a good example of why you shouldn't stockpile it."

The Defense Department plans to have 2,611 tons of mustard agent destroyed at the Pueblo Chemical Depot but wants to ship the hydrolysate to another location for treatment, abandoning an original plan to use biotreatment on site.

The citizens' commission has argued that it would be safer to treat the hydrolysate on site, pointing out that many states will balk at having the liquid waste cross their borders. On-site treatment also would allow the water to be recycled through the Newport Depot. Spokeswoman Terry Arthur said Wednesday that investigators were still trying to determine what caused the caustic wastewater to leak from one of the complex’s two chemical reactors.

Hydrolysate is created during the destruction of VX. The nerve agent itself is so deadly a single droplet can kill a human within minutes, but the hydrolysate contains no active VX, Arthur said.

The wastewater remained inside a sealed area, said Lt. Col. Scott Kimmell, the depot’s commander. He said the spill happened during routine maintenance work.

Of the three previous spills since June, the largest involved about 490 gallons of hydrolysate that spilled when degraded gaskets failed in October.

After each, the chemical neutralization project was stopped until Army contractor Parsons Technology Inc. could determine the cause and make repairs.

The process is expected to create 2 million to 4 million gallons of wastewater.

The Army reported that as of Tuesday about 33,375 gallons of VX had been destroyed - about 13 percent of the more than 250,000 gallons originally stored at the depot 30 miles north of Terre Haute.

A federal review continues into the Army’s plan to ship the hydrolysate to a DuPont Co. plant in New Jersey for final treatment and disposal into the Delaware River.

Pueblo Chieftain staff reporter John Norton contributed to this Associated Press report.