138th Year... and still on the job!	Wednesday October 11, 2006

Depot advisors cool to shipping out liquid waste

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

The head of the program responsible for destroying aging stockpiles of chemical weapons here and at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky was back in Pueblo Tuesday night.

But Mike Parker, manager of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program and head of the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, made little progress convincing locals that a plan to ship liquid waste from the depot is a good idea.

Parker said he'd like to get a decision from the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission by next summer.

The CAC has already made that decision, but Parker said that things had changed at the Pentagon and the program is now limited to $150 million a year, money that could be used to get things going sooner if the waste was treated elsewhere.

Even with that, he said, the process probably wouldn't end until 2023 and would have a total life-cycle cost of $3 billion, twice its original cost estimate.

The latest issue revolves around hydrolysate, the water used to neutralize the depot's 2,611 tons of mustard agent, that will be contaminated with caustic chemicals even after the deadly agent is broken down.

Local officials had wanted to treat the waste here, using bacteria to break down the chemicals and recycling the water back to the neutralization plant. The remaining sludge would then be trucked to a hazardous waste dump.

Parker said at last month's CAC meeting that building a biotreatment plant at the chemical depot would cost $150 million that if spread over the five-year construction period could mean more work early on in construction of the neutralization plant and putting people to work sooner.

Tuesday's meeting was a forum run by the Keystone Center's Janesse Brewer with a number of community leaders invited along with CAC members.

At the last CAC meeting, members were skeptical of Parker's numbers and that didn't change Tuesday night. They also questioned if his estimates took into account other risks such as the refusal of states to allow the hydrolysate to cross their boundaries en route to treatment facilities.

Fresh in their minds is the quandary facing the Newport Army Depot in Indiana where hundreds of thousands of nerve agent hydrolysate is piling up because of resistance in the community surrounding a New Jersey treatment plant.

Parker pointed out that the mustard agent hydrolysate is much more "benign" than that the waste from the nerve gas and there were no objections to the transport of mustard hydrolysate from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

He said that the most significant compounds in the hydrolysate are thiodiglycol, a commonly shipped substance used in paints and ink and small residues of sodium hydroxide, a caustic chemical. He pointed out that about 400 truckloads of sodium hydroxide will be delivered to the depot annually.

Ross Vincent, who represents the Sierra Club on the CAC, said that community resistance is based on broader issues than just the chemicals involved.

Vincent, a chemist who said he once worked at the DuPont plant in New Jersey, said that communities tire of receiving shipments of waste and the Newport hydrolysate was "the straw that broke the camel's back." He told Parker, "You got away with that in Aberdeen but now that cat's out of the bag."

Parker took offense at that, saying that his agency worked with the local community before shipping the Aberdeen hydrolysate.

Other CAC members were even more skeptical. John Thatcher, whose ranch borders the chemical depot within view of the mustard agent storage area, said, "I've sat here 11 years and seen all the smoke and mirrors." He said he wanted more details about the costs of on-site treatment versus shipment of the hydrolysate.

Parker said the detailed numbers are sensitive because they have to do with bids by contractors but that Klomp and another CAC member, Irene Kornelly, could analyze the data and report back on its veracity because they've signed confidentiality agreements.

Parker also said that the community has to realize that on-site treatment carries its own risks and that the sludge that will have to be removed also is a hazardous waste. "To think there's no risk in on-site treatment is naive as well," he said.

Kornelly suggested that the Defense Options Working Group, a subcommittee of the CAC, take the matter on and come up with a recommendation by May.