08/27/2006
AUSTIN -- Twenty-three state legislators have urged Gov. Rick Perry to halt the shipment of a nerve gas byproduct to Port Arthur for incineration.
"The transportation of this hazardous material is a threat to public health and the environment, but the incineration is potentially fatal," said the letter, made public Thursday.
Perry's office said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality believes the shipments are safe.
"The governor's office is aware of the shipments and has been assured by TCEQ that the incineration of this chemical is not endangering public health or the environment," said Katherine Cesinger, Perry's deputy press secretary. "TCEQ will continue to closely monitor the activities."
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency said the material is caustic but no more dangerous than any of the 850,000 other truckloads of caustic material transported around the United States every year.
The Army has been neutralizing VX nerve gas at a facility in Newport, Ind., and in April began shipping 1.7 million gallons of a VX byproduct called hydrolysate to a Port Arthur incinerator. The contract is worth $49 million.
The Army uses a caustic material to break down the VX chemicals and neutralize them, according to the materials agency Web site. After 9-11, a decision was made to accelerate the destruction process by finding an existing incineration plant to eliminate the byproduct.
Use of the Veolia Environmental Services incinerator in Port Arthur has been protested by local resident groups and environmentalists.
Shipments were temporarily halted by the Army in June after environmentalists filed a federal lawsuit in Indiana. But the shipments were resumed after a federal judge this month denied a request for an injunction.
The letter to Perry noted that governors in Ohio and New Jersey had been able to block the Army's plans to use incinerators in those states to destroy the VX byproduct. The lawmakers -- 20 Democrats and three Republicans -- urged Perry to do the same thing here.
"The facility's location in Port Arthur, a predominantly poor, African American community, brings up questions of environmental racism," the letter said.
A coalition of environmental groups argue that the byproduct could be safely destroyed at the Indiana facility rather than be transported across several states to Texas.
Neil Carman, the clean-air director for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, said incineration does not completely destroy the byproduct. He said there is no monitoring at the Veolia incinerator to see if VX is being put into the air.
Veolia plant manager Mitch Osborne said smokestack tests show the plant destroys more than 99 percent of the material that is incinerated. Because there are no detectable amounts of VX in the caustic material put into the incinerator, Osborne said, it is unlikely any VX is escaping destruction.
"We feel very confident that no agent is being emitted out of our stack," Osborne said. "We feel very confident that there is no risk to our workers or the surrounding area."
r.g.ratcliffe@chron.com