The process has been working smoothly, he said last week.
About a dozen 1-ton containers of VX - a drop of which can kill - have been
drained into the site's two 1,000-gallon chemical reactors, he said.
The process creates hydrolysate, which has been compared to
liquid drain cleaner. The Army wants to transport the chemical to the DuPont
plant in Deepwater in Salem County for treatment and disposal in the Delaware
River. But that plan has sparked opposition in New Jersey and Delaware.
Army contractor Parsons Technology Inc. began neutralizing
the nerve agent using 8 percent of VX per volume and has since increased
that loading percentage to 16 percent.
All the processed chemical met the Army's standard of 20 parts
of VX or less per billion, Brubaker said, adding that the startup was going
"better than I envisioned."
More than 250,000 gallons of the Cold War-era chemical weapon
are stored at the Newport depot, about 30 miles north of Terre Haute in western
Indiana.
The neutralization is expected to take more than two years.
There are enough containers on site to hold the hydrolysate that will be
produced through February, Brubaker said.
"We are talking to the [Indiana] Department of Environmental
Management pertaining to the possibility of needing additional storage,"
he said.
Brubaker said the Army and DuPont were working with the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency
to resolve concerns raised by public officials and environmental groups in
New Jersey and Delaware.
