By Patricia L. Pastore
The Tribune-Star

The contractor hired by the Army to provide maintenance services and security for the VX stockpile at the Newport Chemical Depot is involved in a contract dispute with the union representing its non-managerial security personnel.

By agreement, the union and the contractor, Mason & Hanger, approved a 60-day extension to the contract Thursday, said Maxine Spendal, M&H personnel director. She said this action might prevent a possible strike.

“This will give us time to continue negotiations and an opportunity to work out an agreement,” she said.

In 1988, when an agreement couldn’t be reached, the security employees decided to strike.

Spendal said negotiations are continuing with the bargaining committee.

“In the unlikely event of a strike, I have a plan in place,” said depot commander Lt. Col. Scott D. Kimmell.

“I can’t get specific with you with respect to what my plan is. My plan does involve the Army at large.”

The VX is being destroyed in a process that began May 5 by mixing it with sodium hydroxide and water in a special reactor designed to heat and agitate the mixture. This the first time VX has been neutralized in a full-size reactor.

The byproduct of the neutralization, hydrolysate, which has been described by the Army as a caustic material similar to drain pipe cleaner, is being stored on site.

The destruction facility has been gradually increasing the amount of VX it is destroying daily. Jeff Brubaker, Army site project manager, said he expects this month to increase the amount of VX destroyed to four ton containers a day.

The containers are stored in igloos on the chemical depot. They must be transported from the igloos to the destruction facility, where the nerve agent is emptied into a special tank and then into the reactors, where it is destroyed. The tanks are then cleaned and neutralized so the metal can be salvaged.

Col. Jesse L. Barber, project manager for the Army’s Technologies and Approaches Program, has said his first priority is the safety of the workers and the communities near the chemical depot.

Patricia Pastore can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or pat.pastore@tribstar.com.

What IS VX?

--Nerve agent VX, a deadly Cold War chemical weapon, is stored at the Newport Chemical Depot about 30 miles from Terre Haute.

--It is one of the most deadly chemical agents known to man. Army officials have said a drop the size of a BB can kill within minutes.

-- Neutralization of the stock at Newport began May 5.