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August 6, 2007

VX waste shipments to resume in PA mid-week

By Ashley Sanders

The News staff writer

After weeks of awaiting word on whether their company could complete a $49 million work contract with the U.S. Army, Port Arthur’s Veolia Environmental Services is once again poised to incinerate the remains of a former weapon of chemical warfare.

“We are going to resume transport this week of the VX hydrolysate,” Dan Duncan, environmental health and safety manager for Veolia, said during a telephone interview Monday. Hydrolysate is the waste water generated during the destruction of VX nerve gas.

“We are expecting 12 shipments of waste water and they should start arriving about mid-week,” Duncan noted.

An Indiana judge ruled last week against an injunction filed by several environmental groups, including Port Arthur’s Community In-Power and Development Association (CIDA), requesting the Army halt the transport of the nerve gas waste water from Indiana to Texas.

“We anticipated the ruling to come down as it did,” Duncan said. “We believed that once the judge heard all the facts and scientific proof that this hydrolysate is not dangerous, he would come to the conclusion that we should resume transport.”

So far, Duncan reports that Veolia has “safely managed 103 shipments of hydrolysate” — completing 25 percent of the total project.

“Our hope now is that the project can go off without another hitch,” he added. “I think this project is not only beneficial for our employees, but also beneficial to the community. The citizens of Port Arthur should be proud that they are helping their government complete their OACW requirements.”

The Army has been destroying nerve gas since 2005 under the Old and Abandoned Chemical Weapons (OACW) treaty of the international Chemical Weapons Convention. The Army has not produced any new nerve gas since the late 1960s, and is currently stockpiling the wastewater produced in the VX destruction process at Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Newport, Ind.

Veolia Environmental Services, located on TX 73 just west of Taylor’s Bayou, secured a $49 million contract with the Army in April to provide incineration services for the nerve gas waste water currently stored at the Army’s Indiana site. The first shipment of hydrolysate arrived at Veolia — one of only three facilities in the nation with the necessary equipment to incinerate the waste water — on April 16.

Hilton Kelley, director of CIDA and a Veolia opponent, said in a statement released last week that CIDA was disappointed with the outcome of the injunction hearing and that the environmental groups who filled the legal suit against the Army would appeal the judge’s ruling.

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