INDYSTAR.COM

July 17, 2007

Testimony ends in VX waste case

By Cordell Eddings
cordell.eddings@indystar.com

Environmental and community groups from across the country hoping to stop the U.S. Army from shipping chemical weapons waste from Indiana to Texas continue their federal court fight today in Indianapolis.

The waste is created when the Army destroys its stockpile of deadly VX nerve gas, now stored at Newport. The controversy centers on how much VX remains in the waste product.

In April, the Army signed a $49 million contract with Veolia Environmental Services to incinerate about 2 million gallons of hydrolysate, the waste that results from the destruction of the chemical weapon.

The Army has already shipped 103 truckloads of the waste to the facility in Port Arthur, Texas, since April, but stopped shipments from the Newport Chemical Depot in western Indiana until U.S. District Judge Larry McKinney decides whether to block the transfers of the waste.

In 2005, the Army began destroying 1,300 tons of VX gas, a Cold War-era agent so potent a single droplet can kill. More than 50 percent of the VX at the depot has been destroyed.

But opponents of the Army's plan contend the liquid waste poses an imminent threat to public health and is more dangerous than the Army claims.

"There have been several cases that we can document where traces of the gas have been found," said Craig Williams, director of Chemical Weapons Working Group, one of the organizations opposed to the military's plan.

The complainants, made up of several community and environmental groups, claim the 900-mile route of the hydrolysate -- through eight states and past cities such as Memphis, Tenn.; Jackson, Miss.; and Baton Rouge, La. -- poses "an imminent and substantial endangerment" to public health and the environment and violates state and federal laws.

But Army spokesman Greg Mahall said the fear is unfounded and based on sensationalism by the groups.

"I think the problem comes when people hear we are dealing with something that has been called the most deadly substance known to man," Mahall said.

He contends that the waste is as safe as typical chemical shipments moving across the country.

"We are transporting something that is hazardous, but not because of its origin," Mahall said. "The liquid that is left from the process is comparable to Drano."

But the process raised enough concerns to scuttle two earlier disposal deals, with Perma-Fix Environmental Services in Dayton, Ohio, and DuPont Co. in Deepwater, N.J., when strong public opposition surfaced before contracts were signed.

Aside from the hazards they allege in the shipping, the groups fighting the Army in court say the incineration process that Veolia will use may release VX gas into the atmosphere.

Mahall said this fear is unfounded and said that the Army has won approval from regulators in each state the shipments pass through.
"It's not an open campfire here. These are under heavy environmental controls," Mahall said. "There are all sorts of checks and balances to make this program work."

Call Star reporter Cordell Eddings at (317) 444-6308.