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PHILADELPHIA, April 9 (UPI) -- Fishermen in a small New Jersey village of Fortescue say a plan to dump neutralized nerve gas into Delaware Bay may put them out of a job.
The Philadelphia Inquirer says the Army wants to get rid of a stockpile of the highly lethal nerve gas VX, which was developed in 1952 as a chemical-warfare agent. The Army would neutralize the VX at an Indiana stockpile and haul up to 4 million gallons of hydrolysate, a byproduct of the neutralization process, to New Jersey by truck and train.
After further treatment, the hydrolysate would be dumped from the DuPont Chambers Works treatment facility in Deepwater, near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, into the Delaware River.
Government and DuPont officials have tried to assure residents that the hydrolysate would contain no detectable VX, the newspaper said.
"This will just kill the fishing industry here once and for all, no question about it," said Clarence "Bunky" Higbee, whose family has owned a marina for three generations. "We've weathered a lot of storms, but this would probably be the worst."