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03/19/2004 Archived Entry: "Is it me..."
Is it me....
...or does this sound like a really not good idea?
Army and DuPont Co. officials assured skeptical residents last night that it would be safe to destroy stockpiles of highly lethal chemicals and bring the waste to South Jersey to be treated and discharged into the Delaware River.But residents and environmentalists balked at the plan to dump more than 1,200 tons of VX nerve agent - now stored in Indiana - into the river, which provides them with drinking water.
"They put on a good show, but I don't understand why they don't keep it in Indiana," said Norm Cohen, a coordinator of the Unplug Salem Campaign, a network of environmental organizations. "We already have nuclear plants dumping tons into the Delaware."
Army Col. Jesse Barber told more than 200 people at Penns Grove High School that the proposal "is safe and can be done without damaging the environment."
"This is the right thing to do for the country," he said. "When you look at terrorism, it underscores the need... . The greatest risk is the continued storage of such agents."
The Army has 30 days to take more public input before deciding whether to award a contract to a DuPont facility in Salem County to do the work.
A second public meeting is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at Delaware Technical and Community College's conference center in downtown Wilmington.
Todd Owens, a DuPont chemical engineer, said tests had been done on the disposal of the nerve agent byproduct, but acknowledged that "this is the first time that it's ever been done on this scale."
But, he said, the plant, DuPont's Chambers Works Secure Environmental Treatment Unit in Deepwater, is using a similar process on a byproduct of mustard gas from Aberdeen, Md.
The Army plans to neutralize the odorless, tasteless VX nerve agent, which can kill on contact, by mixing it with sodium hydroxide. The resulting liquid would be mixed with hot water and sent to the Deepwater facility, which would treat the water again before releasing it into the river.
Replies: 5 people speak up
It's safe? OK, dump it in the Potomac.
Scorpio
http://scorpio.typepad.com/eccentricity/
Posted by Scorpio @ 03/19/2004 02:08 PM NY
I am writing about the issue of disposing VX nerve gas. Recently, the good people of a community of Dayton, Ohio stopped the same or similar proposal that was to bring partially processed VX to be "neutralized" here. I don't have all the details, but could get them. One of the issues that stopped it was the very bad environmental record of the company that would do the work. It was a great victory for the grassroots.
Posted by Joseph @ 03/19/2004 02:19 PM NY
Jeezus! If they're so worried about terrorism, why ship the crap halfway across the country to dispose of it?
And why would terrorists have to get U.S.-made VX anyway when Bad Men like Saddam are/were supposedly handing it out like candy?
Posted by Tog @ 03/19/2004 09:11 PM NY
Wow. Just think...we could have our own little Bhopal disaster.
"Let's see--did he say dump it and then add sodium hydroxide, or vice-versa? I can't remember..."
Why don't they just secretly ship it to Iraq instead? And then let US forces "find" this WMD stash that we knew was there all along?
One big problem solved.
Or we could sell it to Syria and Iran, wait a bit, and then invade them for possessing WMDs.
Posted by Sharoney @ 03/20/2004 09:48 PM NY
That's horrible, but I gotta say they need to do SOMETHING with all that VX here in Indiana. I don't want to make it anyone else's problem, but I don't want it to be like "just keep in in Indiana and let them deal with it" either.
I went to college not too far away from it in Terre Haute. I drove by the place a coupel times and it always wierded me out to know what was in there.
And Tog, it's not a matter of the terrorists getting the VX to use, it's a matter of if a terrorist goes there and sneaks in a suicide bomber or something, the deaths in SW Indiana could be kinda bad.
Scary stuff.
Posted by Jason @ 03/21/2004 08:24 AM NY
