Shipments of deactivated VX nerve agent wastewater to a Port Arthur incinerator could resume as early as next week after a federal judge on Friday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction.

Plaintiffs in the case plan to appeal.

Mitch Osborne, general manager of the Veolia Environmental Services facility, said no schedule has been finalized on when shipments will resume, but said late next week is a possibility.

Several environmental groups and activists had sued to stop the shipments from a U.S. Army chemical weapons depot in Newport, Ind., to the Veolia incineration facility in Port Arthur.

In denying the injunction request, U.S. District Judge Larry McKinney in the Southern District of Indiana found they failed to show the shipments and incineration violated state or federal laws, according to the 57-page ruling.

The hearing was July 16 through 18 in Indiana.

The plaintiffs had detailed 10 allegations in their filing, among them that the shipments violate state and federal environmental and chemical hazard laws and do not follow hazardous shipment regulations, according to The Enterprise archives.

"Although the court can agree with plaintiffs that the lack of transparency in the later part of the decision-making process in this case is troubling in light of the goal of NEPA to ensure public input into the process, the court cannot conclude that the government's environmental assessment process here was unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious," McKinney stated in the ruling.

Hilton Kelley of the Community In-power and Development Association, one of the plaintiffs, said he was "very disappointed" with the verdict.

Craig William, director of Chemical Weapons Working Group based in Kentucky that also was a plaintiff, stated in a press release that they are "seeking an immediate reconsideration by the judge on several issues" that the judge didn't specifically rule on.

"Courts in Indiana have done Texas a great disservice," Kelley said by phone. "CIDA will not stop fighting."

He added that if the appeal in Indiana isn't successful, they will take up the battle in Texas courts.

Kelley had organized several protests against Veolia since the shipments started.

The groups hope to have a motion for reconsideration before the judge early next week, according to the news release. If denied, they plan to appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The U.S. Army signed a $49 million contract with Veolia to incinerate about 2 million gallons of hydrolysate, the waste left over after the chemical weapon has been treated at the Newport Chemical Depot in western Indiana, according to The Enterprise archives.

Army officials had looked at other places to dispose of the wastewater, but couldn't because of permitting issues.

Osborne said the Army's shipments of the wastewater from Indiana to Texas began in April. The Army shipped 103 truckloads, or 412,000 gallons, of the wastewater to the Port Arthur plant but stopped on June 19 after the injunction bid was filed.

Fred Davis contributed to this report.

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