ARMY AGREES TO TEMPORARILY STOP SHIPMENT OF NERVE AGENT WASTE TO TEXAS
by Dr. Michael Sommer, June 2007
Photo by Jim Olive
An incredible victory for protecting public health and the environment occurred this week and a critical situation averted, for now, as the U.S. Army agreed to temporarily suspend shipments of extremely toxic VX nerve warfare agent and other toxic by-products to Texas from Indiana. Citizens’ requests to stop the shipment were ignored by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, Indiana State Police, federal and state elected officials in both Indiana and Texas until they filed suit. The shipments will stop while the federal court in Terre Haute, Indiana sets a date for an Injunction Hearing on the matter.
The quantity of VX on the point of pin is enough to kill a human; death usually occurs within 15 minutes after absorption of a fatal dosage. Citizens groups including Citizens League for Environmental Action Now (CLEAN), joined by two national organizations - the Sierra Club and the Chemical Weapons Working Group - were instrumental in bringing shipments of the nerve gas to a halt and protecting the health of Port Arthur residents.
"This is a critical situation here in Port Arthur," said Hilton Kelly, director of the local Community In-Power Development Association. "Not only was the community not notified before this operation began, but the risks associated with this material continue to be held secret by the Army and Veolia Environmental Services, the company accepting and burning this waste."
The Army began trucking this uniquely hazardous material out of the Newport Indiana Depot to be burned in the low-income minority community of Port Arthur, Texas, in the dead of night on April 16 without making the shipments generally known in any of the affected states. The suit emphasized that the risks associated with transporting the VX waste were not fully recognized, primarily due to inadequate analysis of the concentrations of VX nerve agent and other deadly compounds, in tankers hauling the material through portions of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Of an estimated two million gallons of the VX waste, approximately 375,000 gallons have already been shipped. How much of that has been burned in Port Arthur to date is unknown.
The Army has never burned agent VX nerve agent by-products, which contain inadequately measured quantities of the actual VX nerve agent. And, unconscionably, the Veolia plant in Port Arthur has no monitors capable of determining if these materials have been completely combusted or are instead being emitted from their smokestacks into the Port Arthur community. The proposed analytical test methods the Army developed to assure complete neutralization of the VX are wholly inadequate to ensure protection of public health and the environment. Dr. Neil Carman, a former environmental regulatory official for the Texas Air Control Board (now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality), pointed out that no trial burns were even being done at the Veolia incinerator to determine the effectiveness of burning this material; the VXH will be mixed with other waste without identifying the combination of chemicals emitted.
It is also a clear case of environmental injustice in Port Arthur-Golden Triangle Gulf Coast region, already a serious concern due to significant numbers of minority and low-income families close to or in poverty. Chemical Weapons Working Group director, Craig Williams, stated that during the Army's attempts to ship this same material to Ohio and then New Jersey, citizens repeatedly requested to have the process opened up for an independent review of the sampling and analysis process, but such requests were ignored or refused. This has left little recourse for citizens other than litigation in an effort to protect the communities affected by the shipment and incineration of the VX nerve agent and VX by-products. These shipments violate federal law barring interstate transportation of chemical weapons as defined in the Chemical Weapons Treaty, which this material clearly falls into.
The consequences of the Army’s failure to understand the nature of the VX nerve agent and the by-products, to provide an appropriate test methods for the environmental characterization, the failure to operate the incinerator in a safe and effective manner, the failure to monitor the stack emissions for toxic substances or test the surrounding areas for environmental contamination of VX products is appalling. This highly flawed process is to risk environmental contamination leading to extraordinary and potentially catastrophic consequences without even notifying the citizens who would be severely affected.
Dr. Michael A. Sommer II, Ph.D. works as a forensic environmental chemist and serves on the board for CLEAN.
