TRENTON -- With the first batches of the deadly nerve agent VX destroyed last week in Indiana, one South Jersey congressman said he is negotiating to outlaw importing any byproduct from the process to New Jersey, he said Tuesday.
Current plans call for the neutralization of about 250,000 gallons of VX now stored at the Newport Chemical Depot in western Indiana. Original Army plans called for then shipping the resulting hydrolysate, a neutralized version of VX, to Deepwater for treatment at the DuPont Chambers Works's high-tech wastewater treatment plant and then releasing it into the Delaware River.
Congressman Robert Andrews, D-Haddon Heights, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has held discussions with GOP leaders on the committee about writing a clause into this year's defense budget barring the Army from transporting it into the Garden State.
"We are in negotiations to tie their hands. This will not let them send any waste this way," Andrews said in a brief telephone interview. "What goes on in Indiana is irrelevant to what is going to happen here."
Both the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Protection have raised red flags over the two-year neutralization project. Andrews said both Democrats and Republicans have been working together on the caveat.
"Our main objective is creating a legal impediment so the Army can't move forward with shipping that." Andrews said, adding early next week it will be clear whether the anti-shipping effort is complete.
Last Friday, chemists funneled 180 gallons of nerve agent into two chemical reactors last week. By the end of this week, Newport Site Manager Jeff Brubaker said Army contractor Parsons Technology Inc. is on schedule to destroy about 540 gallons of VX. The results mean the project to neutralize the depot's more than 250,000 gallons of VX can proceed with the slow ramp-up Army officials had originally planned at the site about 30 miles north of Terre Haute.
"The folks and citizens who live near Newport have waited a long time for neutralization to begin, and we are now one day closer to eliminating the risk that VX poses to their communities," Brubaker said.
But those in South Jersey have proven less enthusiastic.
"We all want the Delaware River protected," said Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-3 of Paulsboro, whose district runs along the river from Gloucester through Salem counties.
Also concerning some in New Jersey is the company put in charge of breaking down the nerve agent -- Parsons. In New Jersey, the company was in charge of both a botched effort to install E-ZPass on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway and the notorious effort to install stricter air monitoring equipment at the state's auto inspection stations. Both contracts were awarded without competitive bidding. Burzichelli said the situations are not comparable.
"On the legacy of no-bid contracts they have gotten, I don't think it's fair to gauge their competency by," he said.
VX is a substance with the consistency of mineral oil that can kill a healthy adult with one drop the size of a pinpoint. By federal guidelines, the hydrolysate can contain just 20-parts-per-billion of VX or less.