The News

Published July 05, 2007 07:06 pm

CIDA hopes petitions will stop nerve gas shipments

By Ashley Sanders
The Port Arthur News Staff Writer

BEAUMONT — More than 340 names are listed on a petition to halt hydrolysate from being shipped from Indiana to Port Arthur's Veolia incinerator, according to Community In-power and Development Association (CIDA) director Hilton Kelley.

Kelley and other members of CIDA dropped off the petition at U.S. Rep. Ted Poe's Beaumont office on Thursday.

"One thing we want to make clear by delivering this petition, is to show that there is strong opposition against this VX nerve gas solution being brought to our city," Kelley said. "We are sick and tired of being used as a toxic dump site."

Kelley added that "Southeast Texans deserve better."

Poe said he wanted to "thank the residents of Port Arthur for submitting a petition regarding the Veolia waste water shipments."

"We will immediately contact the U.S. Army and make them aware of the petition and reiterate to them the concerns of area residents," Poe said in a statement released Thursday. "I always appreciate constituents contacting me directly on matters of importance to our district. My office will continue to communicate with the U.S. Army so we can ensure that every environmental and safety regulation is followed to the letter of the law without exception."

The U.S. Army agreed last month to temporarily suspend the shipments of the former nerve gas agent, now in the form of caustic wastewater, from Indiana while the federal court in Terre Haute, Ind. set a date for a preliminary injunction hearing on the matter.

The hearing is set to begin July 16.

The first shipment of hydrolysate arrived at Veolia on April 16 as part of a $49 million contract with the U.S. Army to destroy the VX wastewater at its Port Arthur facility -- one of only three facilities in the nation with the necessary equipment to do so.

Dan Duncan, environmental, health and safety manager for Veolia Environmental Services, said in a previous interview with The News that Veolia has received 101 shipments and burned 72. The remaining product will continue to be managed safely in the interim.

Veolia representatives maintain that the wastewater is safe and causes no harm to the public during incineration.

CIDA, along with The Sierra Club, Chemical Weapons Working Group and Citizens Against Incineration at Newport filed suit in an Indiana courtroom in May to keep shipments of the caustic wastewater from being transported from a government base in Indiana to Veolia’s Port Arthur incinerator.

According to the suit, the environmental groups believe the wastewater shipments violate state and federal environmental laws. Additionally, the groups also want the government to study the material's environmental impact and to investigate other ways to destroy the nerve gas' by-product.

Both the U.S. Army and Veolia are listed as defendants in the suit.

Kelley said he does not intend to attend the July proceedings in Indiana unless he is summoned.

"In the event the suit does not go through in Indiana, we plan to fight in a Texas court," he said. "We refuse to be guinea pigs."