USA Army's Shipment of VX Nerve Agent Hydrolysate

USA Army's Shipment of VX Nerve Agent Hydrolysate



Aug. 2007  - Environmental health and justice 
groups in Texas, joined by the national Chemical Weapons Working Group 
coalition, today asked Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Texas 
Democrat, for help in challenging the U.S. Army's shipment of VX nerve 
agent hydrolysate from Newport, Indiana to Port Arthur, Texas to be 
incinerated. 
The toxic material at issue is VX hydrolysate, caustic wastewater created 
when VX nerve agent is destroyed by mixing it with sodium hydroxide and 
water at the U.S. Army's Newport Indiana Chemical Depot. The Army is 
destroying its stockpile of VX as required by an international treaty, the 
Chemical Weapons Convention, which requires destruction of these agents by 
all nations by specified target dates. 
On April 5, 2007, the Army signed a $49 million contract with Veolia 
Environmental Services of Lombard, Illinois to provide final treatment of 
the caustic wastewater at its plant in Port Arthur, Texas. The company is 
a subsidary of the Paris-based global environmental services corporation 
Veolia Environnment. 
The Chemical Weapons Working Group and other citizens groups who sued to 
stop the shipments were denied the relief they sought by a federal judge 
in Indiana on August 6. The Army agreed to temporarily suspend the 
shipments from Indiana to Texas while the federal court heard evidence in 
the lawsuit, but now that the case has been decided, the suspension is at 
an end. 
Texas groups involved in the challenge are Houston-based Citizens League 
for Environmental Action Now, CLEAN, as well as the Community In-Power 
Development Association, Inc. and the Lone Star Chapter Sierra Club. 
In a letter to Jackson-Lee, the groups asked her to investigate the Army's 
lack of consideration of environmental justice factors in Port Arthur 
before making a decision to ship the waste there for incineration. 
They also asked her to inquire as to whether or not the Army followed 
recommendations outlined by the General Accounting Office in a January 
2007 report on cost assumptions associated with off-site shipment of the 
hydrolysate. 
The shipment and incineration of hydrolysate "is a classic example of 
environmental racism," the letter states. 
Noting the high percentage of people of color and the high poverty rate in 
the Port Arthur area, the letter points out, "The Army has not performed 
an environmental justice assessment associated with shipment and 
destruction of this waste in Port Arthur, Texas, despite the clear 
disproportionate impact of pollution on southeast Texas and that specific 
community. This violates the Executive Order on Environmental Justice." 
"This situation is exactly the kind that caused President [Bill] Clinton 
to sign the Executive Order on Environmental Justice," said Juan Parras, 
Houston environmental justice activist and community organizer for CLEAN. 
"We need our federal legislators to stand up in support of disenfranchised 
communities, even when some of their colleagues won't." 
Chemical Weapons Working Group Director Craig Williams said that the Army 
is required to provide maximum protection to communities and workers 
throughout the chemical weapons disposal program, but he said this case is 
a clear example of the Army "shirking that responsibility." 
"We are looking to Representative Jackson-Lee and other environmental 
justice leaders to help bring about a safe, secure solution to this 
problem, because the Army is simply unwilling to consider safer treatment 
of the hydrolysate," Williams said. 
On Thursday, August 23 these and other Texas groups will also bring their 
message to Texas state legislators in Austin. 

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