Hazardous stockpile puts Army to the test

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Indiana
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Hazardous stockpile puts Army to the test
Tons of nerve agent at Indiana base must be destroyed
By Jeremy Manier
Published March 22, 2004

A controversial new plan to dispose of U.S. Army nerve agent stockpiled
in Indiana would ship the resulting 3.6 million gallons of waste 1,000
miles to a treatment plant in New Jersey, where the proposal has brought
swift opposition.

One proposed shipping route would take the VX wastewater through Chicago
rail yards--though planners said their preferred route would not pass
through Illinois.

The plan, released earlier this month by the chemical firm DuPont, marks
the second proposal in the last year for getting rid of the VX nerve
agent, one of the deadliest known substances.

An attempt to ship the VX wastewater from the Army base on the
Indiana-Illinois border to Dayton, Ohio, failed in October in the face
of opposition from local officials and an independent report on the
risks, which included release of potentially hazardous compounds into
the sewer system.

DuPont and the Army said the wastewater poses no real threat to the
environment, and its components are not especially dangerous. But
officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
disputed DuPont's contention that CDC scientists had independently
reviewed a company study that found the disposal could be done safely.

The latest proposal is part of the U.S. government's troubled, 18-year
effort to dispose of more than 30,000 tons of chemical weapons, which
must be destroyed by 2007 under an international treaty.

In the case of VX, the Army faces the daunting task of taking a deadly
molasses-like liquid--just one drop on the skin can kill a person in
minutes--and transforming it into wastewater safe enough to release into
New Jersey's Delaware River.

The mere mention of VX has spurred opposition to the project, said Col.
Jesse Barber, who is directing the effort to dispose of the VX at the
Army's Newport, Ind., base.

"When the public hears the words VX, they immediately get very fearful,"
Barber said. "They think, `Oh my God. There's nerve agent coming to my
neighborhood'--which isn't true."

A DuPont statement released March 4 said that CDC scientists had done an
independent review of the company's finding that the VX wastewater
"poses no unique hazards." But CDC officials said last week that the
agency has not yet done a thorough review of the plan.

"We haven't really been involved in the way DuPont claims we were
involved," said Jennifer Sarginson, a spokeswoman for CDC's National
Center for Environmental Health.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0403220120mar22,1,5661099.story?coll=chi-news-hed

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