The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.)  [Printer-friendly version]
February 8, 2004

IN S. JERSEY, PLANS FOR WMD SEEN AS AN IMMINENT THREAT

By Wayne Woolley, Star-Ledger Staff

Some of America's weapons of mass destruction hide in plain sight.

In 1986, before the Cold War was over, Congress ordered the Department
of Defense to destroy a 31,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons, some
dating to World War I.

Then in 1997 the United States signed an international treaty agreeing
to eliminate chemical weapons.

Now, nearly two decades later, almost three-fourths of the original
stockpile sits in depots spread across eight states. Efforts to
destroy the poisons are years behind schedule and billions of dollars
over budget estimates. The DOD concedes it will miss the 2007 deadline
set in the 1997 treaty.

The military agencies created to eliminate the weapons have drawn fire
from environmentalists and the wrath of congressional investigators
who say the Army often fails to anticipate public opposition to
various disposal plans.

Officials in New Jersey say the latest example of the Army's tin ear
can be seen in a proposal to ship a neutralized byproduct of the nerve
agent VX from an Indiana depot to Salem County for further treatment
before it is released into the Delaware River.

The only warning of the plan was a single legal advertisement in a
local Salem County newspaper the week before Christmas and a small
notice posted in a local library. The letters "VX" did not appear.

"They are off on the wrong foot and then some," said Rep. Rob Andrews
(D-1st Dist.), who represents a district farther north along the
river. He says he resents the fact he had no answers for constituents
worried about the plan, which remains under study.

People who live in the shadow of chemical weapons depots around the
country say they are not surprised by what is happening in New Jersey.

"If one blurb in the paper is a public notice, then I'm a 21-year-old
beauty queen," said Sara Morgan, a 62-year-old schoolteacher who
fought plans to incinerate the VX near her home in Indiana. "The Army
just keeps shooting itself in the foot. It's a wonder they can even
walk anymore."

Morgan has questions about the fate of the nearly 1,300-ton stockpile
at the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility three miles from her
front door. The Army, she said, has few answers.

Military officials say they're working to dispose weapons in a way
that puts a premium on public safety and awareness.

"We have an open and transparent program," said Jeffrey Lindblad, a
spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency. "We have been open
and transparent about our program for many years."

He added that all weapons destruction occurs under the scrutiny of
environmental regulators, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and the National Research Council.

Since its inception, America's program to rid itself of chemical
weapons has been at odds with people who live near the places where
the deadly compounds are stored and where the Defense Department
initially planned to burn them.

Public pressure helped derail plans to incinerate weapons in Indiana,
Kentucky, Maryland and Colorado and contributed to delays in
incineration operations in Alabama, Arkansas, Oregon and Utah.

The fight to push the Army to destroy the weapons in ways residents
deemed safest turned people such as an Indiana schoolteacher, a
carpenter from Kentucky and an architect in Alabama into environmental
activists.

"From our vantage point, success means they haven't killed anybody yet
and they're able to operate their facilities for a short time without
a breakdown or regulatory failure," said Craig Williams, a former
carpenter in Berea, Ky., who now heads the Chemical Weapons Working
Group, a coalition of resident groups from communities where the
weapons are stored.

"The whole thing is not a confidence-builder," Williams said. "Even
for government work, it's remarkably dysfunctional."

Although the two Defense Department agencies assigned to destroy the
weapons have made public participation in their plans a cornerstone of
the program, people who live near weapons depots say dealing with the
bureaucracy remains a challenge.

"To be fair, they've gotten a bit better because they've gotten burned
by creating public uproar where there didn't need to be," said David
Christian, an architect whose office in Anniston, Ala., is near a
chemical weapons incinerator that began "test burns" in August in
preparation for full-scale operations later this year. "But there's
always a tendency for them to go back to the traditional way of doing
things: We're the Army and we know best."

In Anniston, 35,000 people live within the "Pink Zone" -- a 9-mile
radius around the weapons incinerator. All were issued duct tape and
protective hoods by public health officials. There have been no
reported releases of chemical agents into the atmosphere, as has
happened at incinerators in Utah and on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific
Ocean.

But Christian said uneasy Anniston residents want more information
from the Army about any safety concerns that have arisen during the
test burns.

"There's little information coming out," he said. "The sirens haven't
gone off, and nobody in the community has had to mask up. But no news
isn't always good news."

The task of eliminating the massive and far-flung cache of deadly
weapons has been daunting.

"When these things were developed, they didn't think about how to get
rid of them. It wasn't in their plan," Lindblad said. "The Cold War
came and went and here we're stuck with Cold War relics."

Even critics of America's weapons disposal programs agree with
assessments by the National Research Council and other experts that
the greatest risk lies in not destroying the stockpiles as soon as
possible.

Leonard Cole, a Rutgers University chemical and biological warfare
expert, said the danger of doing nothing stems from a stockpile that
has been plagued by occasional accidental releases of toxins and one
that remains a ripe target for terrorists.

"If you're waiting for some of these agents to disintegrate
themselves, you'll be waiting a century," Cole said. "We are better
off trying to get rid of it, even if there are risks, no matter how
small."

Progress in eradicating the stockpile has come slowly.

The General Accounting Office has drafted more than 20 reports over
the past decade critical of the Defense Department management of the
weapons disposal program, citing leadership turnover and delays caused
by safety and environmental concerns as well as snags created by rocky
community relations.

The DOD has said that in addition to failing to meet the 2007 deadline
set by the International Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty for
destruction of the weapons, it also may miss a five-year extension
allowed by the treaty.

The GAO reports also noted cost overruns. The program, estimated to be
$1.7 billion at its inception, was projected to cost $15 billion in
1998 and is now tagged at $25 billion.

Some lawmakers are losing patience.

"I'm frustrated by the political opportunism both within the Pentagon
and throughout our nation's communities," Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-
Mass.) said at a hearing on chemical demilitarization in October. "And
recognize that its fallout has led to one delay after another as we
attempt to erase this residue of the Cold War and a possible Achilles'
heel on our domestic security."

But public resistance to weapons-disposal projects continues.

The Army's plan to eliminate the VX stockpile in Newport, Ind., by
first mixing it with water and sodium hydroxide to turn it into a
compound called hydrolysate (pronounced hi-drol-a-sate) before
shipping it to a commercial wastewater treatment facility is on hold.

In October, after widespread public protest and two lawsuits, the
county government in Dayton, Ohio, refused to give an Army contractor
a wastewater disposal permit to treat the hydrolysate (which the Army
describes as caustic wastewater) and turn it into clean water before
releasing it in the city sewer system.

The new proposal -- announced Dec. 19 with the legal notice -- called
for trucking the hydrolysate to the DuPont Chambers Works plant in
Deepwater, Salem County, for treatment before it is released into the
Delaware River. The plant has already treated hydrolysate created by
the destruction of more than 50 tons of mustard blister agent from the
Aberdeen Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Maryland. More than 1,500
tons remain in the stockpile there.

Following the outcry from public officials in New Jersey, the Army
agreed to extend a public comment period on the proposal, which was to
have ended on Jan. 19, by 60 days. But the public comment period is on
hold while DuPont officials continue to test their ability to safely
treat the hydrolysate, said Linblad, the Army spokesman.

"There's a lot of information people are requesting," he said. "A lot
of it, we just don't have right now."

Andrews, the Camden County congressman, says he will demand proof from
independent scientists that the final treated product will do no harm
when it is released into the Delaware River before he'd even consider
the proposal.

Rick Barnhart, mayor of nearby Pennsville Township, says his office
hasn't been overwhelmed with phone calls about the nerve gas. "We've
lived with DuPont for years.... They treat a lot of chemicals, some
of them worse."

Environmentalists such as Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club may never be
swayed.

"What they couldn't find in Iraq, they want to dump in New Jersey,"
Tittel said. "The Army has a lot of nerve."

Residents who live near the Indiana depot also oppose the plan to move
the hydrolysate to New Jersey. More than 130 residents signed a letter
sent to the Indiana installation's commander in December, voicing
concerns about spills of the hydrolysate in transit. Although the
compound itself is no longer VX, the hydrolysate is a corrosive liquid
that could burn skin. Its fumes could also damage lungs.

Sara Morgan, the schoolteacher who can see towers on the Newport depot
from her home, said she and other residents prefer a more expensive
and time-consuming process that would destroy the VX entirely in the
place where it's been stored for more than 40 years.

"I'm a Hoosier and an American who was raised with the golden rule,"
she said. "I wouldn't want that stuff shipped to me, so I don't want
to see it shipped anywhere else."

Wayne Woolley covers the military. He may be reached at
wwoolley@starledger.com or (973) 392-1559.

Copyright 2004 NJ.com.