11/17/2004

Associated Press

DuPont has developed a technology that could strengthen its ability to treat a byproduct of the deadly nerve agent VX stockpiled in western Indiana, a company spokesman said.

The Army plans to soon destroy 1,269 tons of VX at the Newport Chemical Depot, about 30 miles north of Terre Haute. The byproduct of VX neutralization is expected to be 4 million gallons of a caustic chemical called hydrolysate that requires further treatment before disposal.

The Army wants to transport the hydrolysate to a DuPont Inc. plant in New Jersey for treatment and disposal in the Delaware River — a plan that has sparked opposition in New Jersey and Delaware. East Coast residents believe the hydrolysate's phosphates EMPA and MPA would not be removed enough by treatment at the DuPont plant, according to DuPont spokesman Anthony Farina.

Residents are concerned that DuPont's discharges will pollute the Delaware River, but the new phosphonate removal technology could help address those concerns, Farina said.

Two new DuPont technologies to address phosphate removal are an advanced oxidation pretreatment and a biological treatment, Todd Owens, a DuPont chemical engineer, told the Tribune-Star of Terre Haute for a Wednesday story.

He said in the oxidation treatment, EMPA is converted to MPA and then the MPA is removed by chemical precipitation. The wastewater from the process would be discharged as effluent into the Delaware River under the New Jersey permits issued by the state, Farina said.

The MPA solids would be taken to a permitted landfill.

Oxidation has been used by DuPont to treat the hydrolysate of mustard agent, a chemical weapon stored and neutralized at Aberdeen, Md., Owens said.

The biological route is a biodegradable method of removing the phosphate using an isolated strain of bacteria, Owens said. He said research is ongoing at the Chambers Works bio-plant in New Jersey.

"If we are able to apply the new technologies to the Newport project, the technology is pretty promising," Owens said.

Parsons Technologies, the company the Army contracted to destroy the VX, has said it is ready to proceed with neutralization.

The Army is waiting for a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its review of the plan to haul the hazardous waste from Newport to New Jersey.

Information from: The Tribune-Star