Army to Begin Destroying Nerve Agent

[Rose Siding]

NEWPORT, Ind. -- The Army will begin this spring destroying a deadly nerve agent that was stockpiled at a chemical depot, an official said.

Jeff Brubaker, government site project manager at the Newport Chemical Depot, said Tuesday that he expects the 1,269 tons of VX to be destroyed in 2 1/2 years.
...
The VX neutralization at the depot is expected to create 4 million gallons of a chemical byproduct called hydrolysate that requires additional treatment before disposal. The byproduct will be stored at the depot until officials decide how to dispose of it, Brubaker said.

The Army wants to transport the hydrolysate -- which has been compared to liquid drain cleaner -- to a DuPont plant in New Jersey for treatment and disposal in the Delaware River. The plan has sparked opposition in New Jersey and Delaware.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-brf-nerve-agent-delay,0,7983191.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[LynnTheDem]

1. INVADE AMERICA!!! WMD STOCKPILES!!! Free nations don't stockpile WMD!

America has DRONES!!! America has 1,269 TONS of sotckpiled VX!!! America has NUKES!!! America is a rogue state!!!

[thecrow]

2. The US has 1269 TONS of VX?

Where did that come from? Saddam?
And why has the world community attacked us over our WMD?
Just wondering.
Geez

[Brooklyn Michael]

4. Never got the chance...

We just never got the chance to ship them over to Iraq so they could be "found"...:eyes:

[Gunit_Sangh]

7. re: The US has 1269 TONS of VX?

That's only a small percentage of the total chemical weapons stored at weapon depots across the U.S. I believe there are a total of 8 sites that had/have nerve & mustard gas stored. Two sites, one in the Marshall Islands (Johnson Atoll?) and another one in Utah (Ogden?) have already destroyed their stockpile using incinerators.

I live near one of these depots in Kentucky. This stuff makes headline news around here. The Army wanted to build an incinerator here 20 years ago. We tried to get them to move the gas and they told us it was too dangerous to move. However, we did force them to switch to chemical neutralization instead of building a hazardous waste incinerator.

However, * is trying to kill neutralization plants currently in the process of being designed/built. After being told it was too dangerous to move these weapons for the last 20 years they are trying to save some money by looking into transporting the weapons to facilities already built. The risk of killing thousands of Americans is less important than keeping *'s tax cuts for his campaign contributors so they can buy Humvees, Rolexes and Plasma TV's.

p.s. All of these weapons are left over munitions from World War II. Leaks develop in these weapons while they are sitting in bunkers. They can't even be moved safely let alone be used in battle.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. treatment and disposal in the Delaware River

Why not bury it in crawford or kennebunkport instead. Kennebunkport indeed.

[cyberpj]

5. I live in Northern Delaware, not so far from the river where this stuff

will be processed and we're fighting it but making little headway against military "specialists" who know much better than us common folk that "it will all be processed safely and cleanly".

Yeah, right.

[cyberpj]

6. Here are details provided by our Delaware News Journal -

Notice the travel required while the mix is still "caustic".

http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/04/VXFlash.html

[Merope215]

8. So, uh, they're going to just "dispose"

of this stuff in the river?? Does anyone know how they're neutralizing the hydrolysate before they're dumping it in the Delaware?