Army Plan to Dump VX in Delaware River Delayed

I am very pleased that next year’s Pentagon budget included a provision that will delay the Army’s plan to dump VX nerve agent byproduct into the Delaware River.  This is a victory for the health of South Jersey residents and of the Delaware River and could not have been accomplished without the hard work of my fellow New Jersey Representatives Jim Saxton and Frank LoBiondo.  The provision requires Congress's investigative agency, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to study the viability of the Army’s plan and issue a report of its finding.  The Army cannot proceed with its plan until 60 days after the report is issued.

Unfortunately, the Army's original cost-benefit analysis of the VX proposal was based on faulty and incomplete data.  It would have been irresponsible to approve a potential public health and environmental disaster based on that work.  I look forward to seeing the GAO's report, which I expect will provide an impartial, thorough analysis of the Army's proposal.

This victory is another important step to ensure that this ill-conceived plan is not forced on South Jersey.  Rest assured, I will continue to fight the Army’s VX plan because it is risky to our health and environment and is simply unnecessary. 

For more information, please see the recent article from the Philadelphia Inquirer that I have included below.

Another hurdle for VX disposal:
A N.J.-inspired law calls for review of Army plans for the nerve agent.

By Jacqueline L. Urgo
Inquirer Staff Writer
Oct. 20, 2006

Army plans to dispose of caustic waste from the lethal VX nerve agent into the Delaware River have been halted - at least temporarily - by a new federal law.

An amendment to a defense spending bill signed this week by President Bush, and written by U.S. Reps. Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), James Saxton (R., N.J.), and Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), calls for a detailed review of the Army plan by the Government Accountability Office.

The bipartisan group of New Jersey lawmakers said the measure could cripple the Army's plan to dump a treated, watered-down form of the VX nerve agent called hydrolysate into the river at Deepwater, N.J. Gov. Corzine also praised the measure, saying it sends the Army a message: "New Jersey is no dumping ground. The Delaware River should be treasured and protected, not harmed and mistreated."

The Government Accountability Office will determine whether treating the chemical at a weapons stockpile in Newport, Ind., where it is currently being stored, is significantly more expensive - as the Army has claimed - than risking its transport by truck or rail through four heavily populated states.

The lawmakers said they would ask the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control to again investigate the Army's plan to transport as much as four million gallons of neutralized VX hydrolysate to the DuPont Chambers Works in Deepwater, near the Delaware Memorial Bridge. The lawmakers said they believed the agencies would reject the plan under the new law's standards, even though they have approved the plan in the past.

The new law calls for a review of the "adequacy of rationale" in the Army's dismissal of other technologies to dispose of its VX stockpile, including the Army's refusal to build a wastewater disposal system at the chemical depot in Indiana.

If the Army's plan to dump the VX hydrolysate passes the new regulatory hurdles, the material could be transported to New Jersey by early next year. Meanwhile, Gov. Corzine and the legislators said they will continue to work on permanently killing the Army's plan.  Scientists call VX a weapon of mass destruction.

The military counts the nerve agent among its deadliest weapons. A drop of VX in its raw form can kill a human on contact.

It appears the Army never used VX on the battlefield because of the danger that the wind could blow the odorless vapor back in the direction of the troops, according to scientists at Oxford University, in England, where VX was developed in the 1950s.

The Army says its plan to dispose of the treated VX wastewater in the Delaware River is safe and would save taxpayers as much as $347 million.

Citing contract sensitivity, the Army wouldn't say how much the entire project could cost, nor when it would likely be completed, said Jeffrey Lindblad, spokesman for the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency.

Critics say the VX disposal plan puts at risk millions of residents of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as the environment in general.

"We have by no means exhausted our alternatives to ending this plan," LoBiondo said. "The only gambling that should be done in New Jersey is in Atlantic City, not with the lives of our residents."

Tracy C. Carluccio, deputy director of the nonprofit Delaware Riverkeeper Network, called the VX disposal "ill conceived and reckless" and vowed to stand with New Jersey lawmakers in fighting the Army.

"We will remain vigilant along with them until this project is dead," Carluccio said.  Lindblad, the Army's spokesman, said military officials believe they will eventually prevail.

"We're confident in our process and that this can be done safely with no harm to humans or the environment," Lindblad said yesterday.

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