By Karen Hensel
24 Hour News 8
(Newport) - Thursday morning marked a huge milestone for the state when destruction of the deadly chemical nerve agent VX began.
The process is nerve-wracking, because even though workers will be well-protected during destruction, just one pindrop of VX on the skin can kill. The destruction process began Thursday morning at 9:00 am.
There have been questions raised about the VX destruction process. It must be broken down into a byproduct called hydrolysate, a highly corrosive substance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has criticized the Army's plans to destroy the VX and dispose it, raising questions about preparedness. The state of New Jersey continues to fight a plan to dump the hydrolysate into the Delaware River.
Site project manager at the Newport facility, Jeffrey Brubaker, said everything went according to plan Thursday. "This morning we received the first tonne-container of VX into the facility. From there, the tonne-container was moved into a specially-designed glove box where the agent will be drained," said Brubaker.
"In total, as agent destruction operations proceed over the next two and a half to three years, we will destroy the entire stockpile here at Newport, which is in excess of 1,200 tons of VX. The estimated cost of that project is about $1.3 billion," he said.
Some Hoosiers, especially those living close to Newport, have expressed concern about the process. "Safety is our number one priority. We are beginning operations today. We're going to proceed forward very slowly, very deliberately. When neutralization operations commence sometime tomorrow, we're going to take a look at all of the data from the first neutralization. We're going to copmare that data with our expectations going in. Only after we are completely satisfied will any decisions be made about moving forward," said Brubaker.
Video shows workers at the Newport Chemical Depot beginning the VX destruction process.
The VX nerve agent is a liquid, not a gas. "It's a common misperception. People believe it's a gas when actually it's a liquid. It's a liquid agent similar in viscosity to lightweight motor oil," said Jeff Lindblad, public affairs spokesman.
Army workers are draining two tons of the chemical from boxes through tubes into agent holding tanks. From there, the VX will be broken down or neutralized and temporarily stored on site.
"The agent holding tank is within a secure area within the facility. That area is also under what we call engineering controls. It's a filtered area. Therefore that ensures total containment of the agent," said Brubaker.
I-Team 8 first reported how the CDC was concerned about the safety of the disposal process. Hydrolysate is a byproduct of VX which when broken down is a highly corrosive material that has been compared to Drano.
Despite safety concerns, authorities at Newport say there's no threat whatsoever to the public. "I can tell you we have the best-trained, most disciplined work force here, excellent processes, the best I've ever worked with. You can be confident we know what we're doing. We're doing the right thing. We're doing it deliberately. We're doing it right,” said Richard Goetz, operations director.
How It's Done
At 9:00 am in Newport, the first of 1,600 tonne-containers was moved into the cradle and glove box. A handful of army officials and contractors were also in the room, some actually opening the first container, others with a checklist.
It takes 15 minutes just to open the container. "They operate in gloves and use special wrenches to take apart the valves,” explained a contractor.
Working through special gloves in a sealed box, the workers wear cotton coveralls. Each has a gas mask and antidote as a precaution.
The Army has ordered the start-up to be very slow and deliberate by design. This is a pilot project. Working slowly helps ensure safety for the workers and residents.
Two valves are key. Hoses are connected to drain from the barrel. Draining won't be complete until Friday.
The VX will then be neutralized, fed into a reactor and mixed with hot sodium hydroxide and water. Samples will be taken every two hours and sent to a lab on-site.
Tests will be performed to be sure all of the VX is destroyed. That’s important since scientists and government agencies have sounded the alarm trace elements of VX might still remain.
"We have verification chambers and test air and surface of the tonne-container to be sure it is completely decontaminated before it is moved into the room,” said the contractor.
One container at a time, 1,200 tons of VX, the Army estimates it will take two and a half years to destroy it all.
The VX has been stored in Newport for forty years. Residents are told if something goes wrong, stay inside and shut off airflow to your home. The Army won't let anyone on site during the destruction process. However, they have mounted cameras inside the destruction chamber.
Project Security - Read I-Team 8's reports about Indiana's weapons of mass destruction
Testing began on a chemical reactor at the Newport Chemical Depot near Terre Haute, Indiana on Friday morning.  If successful, the reactor will be put to use destroying the large VX nerve gas stockpiles stored at the facility over the course of the next two years.  
After the disposal project experienced several delays, the facility announced it would begin pumping VX into a completed disposal unit for testing.  The unit consists of a chemical reactor in which the VX will be mixed with water and sodium hydroxide, heated to 194°F while mixed with paddles. The resulting chemical, called hydrolysate, is chemically similar to commercial drain cleaners and has similar properties.  If the test is successfully completed , the unit will continue processing the VX until the entire stockpile has been neutralized, a process projected to take two years.  Administrators expect to complete testing on May 10, 2005.


According to the controversial plan, the finished waste product would be shipped to New Jersey for final reprocessing. The inert chemical would then be emptied into the Delaware River where natural attenuation would occur. 

Residents near the proposed river disposal site in New Jersey oppose this idea.  The contractor for the final component of this disposal would be the DuPont Corporation.

====Background on Newport Chemical Depot (NCD)====
dangerous goods, class 2.3 ( GNU license)      
NCD is a bulk chemical storage and destruction facility in west central Indiana, thirty miles north of Terre Haute.  Originally founded during World War II to produce RDX, a conventional explosive, it later became a site for chemical weapons manufacturing during the Cold War.  It is now used to securely store and gradually neutralize part of the US stockpile of VX. 

VX was manufactured by the U.S. in the 1950s and 60's as a deterrent to possible Soviet Union use. It was never deployed, and the manufacture was halted in 1969 after an order signed by then-president Richard Nixon.

In 1999, the Army announced it awarded a disposal contract to Parsons Infrastructure & Technology, Inc., a business unit of Parsons Corporation.  Some 220 civilian Parsons employees work at the facility, which is supervised by an Army officer reporting to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, and a board of civilian government overseers called the Indiana Citizens' Advisory Commission, some of whose members are appointed by the state governor.

Security at the facility is controversial.  A private security service, supplemented by a complement of Indiana National Guard soldiers, guarded the facility until April 14, 2005, when the soldiers were withdrawn.  An Indianapolis television station has questioned security measures in some of its special reports.