The News

Published July 16, 2007 07:40 pm

PA keeps tabs on VX hearings in Indiana

By Amy Moore
The Port Arthur News

Hearings on a preliminary injunction to stop shipments of a former nerve gas began in a federal courtroom in Terre Haute, Ind. Monday and resulted in an Army colonel testifying that the caustic wastewater is more volatile than originally thought.

Colonel Jesse Barber, who is in charge of overseeing the shipment of VX nerve gas wastewater to Southeast Texas, testified that there is more VX in the caustic wastewater that is being shipped across eight states than the Army previously stated.

Community In-power and Development Association (CIDA) director Hilton Kelley said he spoke with a Chemical Weapons Working Group attorney on the case who said the Army Colonel did "a lot of backwatering on his last testimony." The hearings are scheduled to continue for another two days.

Kelley said he will continue to fight for the end of the shipments to Port Arthur's Veolia Environmental Services despite the fact that 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.

"Veolia is not equipped to deal with the nerve gas itself. They have no monitoring system and no testing for the hydrolysate," Kelley said. "We know that the VX can reorganize during transport as well."

CIDA, along with The Sierra Club, Chemical Weapons Working Group and Citizens Against Incineration at Newport filed the 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.

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.