Army Officials Admit Interstate Shipment of VX Nerve Agent

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, July 17, 2007 (ENS) - Two senior Army officials today admitted in federal court in Indianapolis that the VX nerve agent byproducts being shipped from the Newport Army Chemical Depot in Indiana to Port Arthur, Texas are not considered "destroyed" under the definition of the Chemical Weapons Convention, CWC.

The CWC is an international treaty which requires destruction of all chemical weapons by 2012, including those in the United States.

Four groups - the Chemical Weapons Working Group, Sierra Club, Citizens Against Incineration at Newport, and the Community In Power Development Association in Port Arthur - filed suit against the Army and its incineration contractor Veolia Environmental Services.

They allege that the transportation and incineration of the VX liquid byproduct, called hydrolysate, are putting communities at risk.

Judge Larry McKinney, chief federal district judge for the Southern District of Indiana, is hearing testimony on a motion for an injuction to halt shipments of the byproduct through eight states. Shipments are suspended until the judge rules.

The toxic by-product at issue is VX hydrolysate, caustic wastewater created when VX nerve agent is mixed with sodium hydroxide and water at the Newport Depot in an attempt to destroy the VX in accordance with the treaty.

"Until this material is destroyed under the treaty definition, it is considered a declared chemical weapon," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group.

Williams pointed out that Public Law 103-337 forbids the interstate shipment of chemical weapons. He said the Army's admission that the VX agent is not destroyed until it is unloaded in Texas means that the shipments are illegal.

Testifying today, Colonel Jesse Barber, project manager at the Newport Chemical Depot who is responsible for neutralization of the VX stockpile, and Jeff Brubaker, a civilian who serves as site project manager for the Army at Newport, admitted that solids from the hydrolysate found in the neutralization reactor showed concentrations of VX at 19 parts per million.

The Army considers hydrolysate safe for transportation if levels of VX agent are 20 parts per billion or less - a level one thousand times lower than what was found in the solids.

Government documents show there are solids in the VX hydrolysate being shipped to Texas.

"The Army only tests the liquid portion of the hydrolysate prior to approval for transportation," said Williams.

Dr. Michael Sommer, a forensic environmental chemist from Houston, Texas testifying for the plaintiffs, said today that the analytical methods the Army is using to determine chemical agent concentrations do not meet EPA standards and are "profoundly bogus."

Plaintiff groups advocate that the Army treat the VX hydrolysate at Newport.