Pike may be VX disposal route (NJ Turnpike/nerve gas)

[Gloria]

http://www.nj.com/news/times/index.ssf?/base/news-0/111942758914610.xml&coll=5


Pike may be VX disposal route
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
By ROBERT STERN
Staff Writer

The entire New Jersey Turnpike has been marked as a possible route in the U.S. Army's plan to reduce its stockpile of lethal VX nerve agent by neutralizing it in Indiana and transporting the chemical byproduct to the Garden State to be dumped in the Delaware River south of Philadelphia.

Since May, the Army has begun destroying 1,269 tons of VX nerve agent housed at its Newport Chemical Depot in western Indiana, where the chemical byproduct will be stored while the Army awaits regulatory approvals to dump it in the Delaware.

A single pinpoint droplet of VX - a liquid with the consistency of mineral oil - can kill a healthy man quickly. Hydrolysate, the chemical byproduct resulting from the destruction of VX, isn't a lethal nerve agent but a corrosive wastewater substance similar to liquid drain cleaner.


The DuPont company and the Army have proposed a disposal plan in which a DuPont plant near the southern tip of the New Jersey Turnpike would handle final treatment of the hydrolysate before pumping it into the Delaware.

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[Cornjob]

1. Wait a minute!

Doesn't it make more sense to neutralize it on-site, then transport it?

What am I missing?

[daleo]

2. I think the hydrosolate is the by-product of the VX destruction

That is what they are transporting, so presumably the destruction is being done nearer the site. But dumping a corrosive chemical (they say it is like drain cleaner) in the river doesn't seem like the greatest idea either.

[Igel]

6. It would get final treatment, whatever that means,

before being dumped.

There, don't we all feel better now?

[daleo]

7. Yes, "final treatment" could be anything

Maybe they just mean "will be sealed in containers". As we all know, containers never leak.

[mermaid]

3. This Is What You Are Missing....

"...by neutralizing it in Indiana and transporting the chemical byproduct to the Garden State to be dumped in the Delaware River south of Philadelphia."

[WindRavenX]

4. I'm waiting for the Jersey jokes

I love my dirrty Jersey :cry:

[HeeBGBz]

5. They are dumping it in the fucking river????

WTF? The world has gone mad or else I've beamed into some parallel universe nightmare.

[Kool Kitty]

8. Why must this be transported on any road in the US?

Can't they neutralize it on site in Indiana and keep it there? If you live in Jersey and travel on the turnpike, then you are aware of the many accidents on same road. (Not to mention the danger on the roads it will take before it gets here to NJ.) This sounds real dangerous to me.