Editorial
VX shipments pose a threat

July 17, 2007

The U.S. Army maintains that it would be less expensive and faster to ship truckloads of hazardous waste known as VX hydrolysate through Memphis than it would be to dispose of the stuff on-site in Indiana.

If anything needs a second opinion, it's this very disturbing idea. VX hydrolysate is the gunk left over from a process that's supposed to neutralize VX, one of the most deadly weapons in the chemical arsenal.

The debate is being thrashed out this week in a courtroom in Indiana, where witnesses for the Sierra Club, the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group and other organizations are arguing against the continuation of shipments that have been suspended, at least until their safety is ascertained.

That's no small matter with materials like the nerve agent VX, which was stockpiled in Indiana during the Cold War buildup of weapons of mass destruction. A tiny drop of it spilled from a truck would be all one would need to kill a human. Witnesses for the groups opposed to shipments -- from Newport, Ind., to an incinerator in Port Arthur, Texas -- say trace amounts can still be found in VX hydrolysate.

The Army wants to transport an estimated 330 more truckloads to Port Arthur. Putting trucks loaded with this material back on the road would be a matter of concern for at least two reasons. Targeting the community of Port Arthur, where the largest ethnic group is African-American and almost a quarter of the residents live in poverty, smacks of environmental racism. And alternatives to shipping this byproduct across eight states have not been fully explored.

The plaintiffs contend prospects are promising for the safe, on-site treatment of the material through a process known as supercritical water oxidation (SCWO). Plaintiffs also are contesting the Army's cost analysis.

Clearly, too many questions remain to be answered about the shipping plan before it's allowed to continue. At the least, a pilot project testing the efficacy of the SCWO process should be undertaken before proceeding.

The United States military has a legal obligation to dispose of chemical weapons. Congress mandated it in 1985, and the United States was a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, under which we agreed to destroy our entire stockpile.

This country has a moral obligation to get rid of this stuff as well. VX, mustard gas, sarin and other indiscriminate killers of civilian populations have no morally defensible application in any conflict with another nation or stateless enemy.

To take this byproduct on a 900-mile trip across America simply puts Memphis and too many other communities at risk without a complete test of the alternatives.