It all has to do with VX nerve gas, the DuPont
corporation and the Delaware River.
How safe is safe? Government plans to get rid of chemical weapons stored
in the Midwest and have repercussions here along the Delaware River. For corporate giant DuPont this should be routine industrial waste treatment.
The kind of work they do all the time at Sprawling Chambers Works just north
of the Delaware Memorial bridge in Salem County. At a military depot 70 miles from Indianapolis, the Army has 1300 tons
of the cold war vintage nerve agent called VX. A single drop on the skin
can kill in minutes. The government plans to use powerful chemicals to breakdown
and neutralize the stockpile in Indiana. That will produce thousands of gallons
of waste. The Army wants to truck the waste here to DuPont's industrial treatment
unit where it would be cleaned up and released into the Delaware River. Critics
charge the plan could risk public health. Environmentalist Muller claims minute traces of VX could survive and make
it to DuPont. The company says that is not possible. DuPont and the Army face an uphill battle in the court of public opinion.
Last summer the Army failed to have the VX waste treated in Ohio. Officials
there rejected the idea. Today the head of New Jersey's DEP signaled he had
a lot of questions.