Published: August 03, 2007 06:04 pm         

Judge declines to block VX waste shipments from Newport

INDIANAPOLIS — A federal judge on Friday denied environmentalists’ request that he block truck shipments of nerve agent waste from western Indiana’s Newport Chemical Depot to an incinerator in Texas.

Environmental groups failed to make their case that the Army did not fully consider the risks involved in moving the neutralized VX nerve agent waste across some 900 miles of highways in the nation’s midsection, U.S. District Judge Larry McKinney wrote in the 57-page ruling.

He also ruled the Army had considered the scientific evidence before concluding that the deadly VX would not reform in the waste called hydrolysate that is the byproduct of the neutralization process.

VX is a Cold War-era chemical weapon so deadly only a tiny droplet can kill a human.

The Army contends the waste contains only a minuscule amount of VX — 20 parts per billion or less — and is no more dangerous than other hazardous wastes shipped each day across the nation.

The Chemical Weapons Working Group, the Sierra Club and other groups argued in the lawsuit filed in May that some batches of the waste produced by Newport’s ongoing VX neutralization project contain more residual VX and a toxic byproduct called EA2192 than the Army maintains.

But McKinney said the record showed the Army had “sought and received scientific advice” about the proper method to detect both chemicals and “made a decision based on scientific principles.”

“This Court cannot and will not substitute its judgment ... for that of the Government,” he wrote.

The environmental groups contended that the shipments from Newport, about 30 miles north of Terre Haute, to Port Arthur, Texas would threaten public health and the environment if one or more of the trucks carrying the liquid waste crashed or was targeted by terrorists.

The environmental groups wanted the Army to stick to its original plan of disposing of the VX waste at the Indiana depot.

McKinney said the Army decided the shipments would pose less of a terrorism risk than leaving the stockpile at Newport.

The Army agreed in June to suspend the shipments until McKinney decided whether to issue an injunction blocking the transfers. By that time, 103 tanker trucks had hauled the waste from Indiana to Texas. It was not immediately clear Friday how rapidly the shipments might resume. The Associated Press left messages with Army spokesmen seeking comment.

Chemical Weapons Working Group director Craig Williams said the Army was free to resume shipments since there was no injunction, and he expected them to do so quickly. “That’s the deal, so they can move more stuff down there if they want to,” he said.

Williams said the plaintiffs would go to court early next week and ask McKinney to reconsider his ruling. “If he denies, then we’ll file for a temporary restraining order pending appeal,” Williams said.

“The bottom line is we’re not going away, we’re not giving up on this,” he said. “We believe it is improper and illegal to be dumping this stuff on a poor minority community in Texas.”

The southeastern Texas city’s population is predominantly black and Latino.

The Army signed a $49 million contract in April with Veolia Environmental Services to incinerate at its Port Arthur complex about 2 million gallons of the waste.

The Army’s agreement with Veolia came after two earlier deals, with Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc., in Dayton, Ohio, and DuPont Co. in Deepwater, N.J., were scuttled because of strong opposition.

The Army estimates that more than 300 additional truckloads of hydrolysate will be needed to haul away the remaining waste Newport’s VX neutralization is expected to produce.

Although the shipments to Veolia are on hold, an Army contractor continues to chemically neutralize Newport’s VX stockpile, which was originally more than 250,000 gallons.