VX Waste Disposal Site Weathers Hurricane

The Texas facility being used to incinerate waste VX nerve agent disposal waste from Indiana sustained little damage last week from Hurricane Humberto, the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency said (see GSN, Aug. 24).

The hurricane arrived Thursday on the Texas coast, not far from the Veolia Environmental Services plant in Port Arthur.  The facility lost power but, despite driving rain and 80 mph winds, significant damage was limited to loose sheet metal, according to an Army press release.

Plant operators had already shut down the incinerator complex after it became clear that the hurricane was heading toward the facility.  There was no escape of stored hydrolysate wastewater produced by nerve agent neutralization at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana.

The final shipment of waste last week occurred Wednesday.  Further shipments were expected to be delayed until this week, after the facility regained power.

Nearly 1,100 of roughly 1,700 bulk containers at Newport have been drained of nerve agent.  A total of 600,858 gallons of waste has been shipped to Port Arthur.  The facility has burned 579,748 gallons of the hydrolysate (U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency release, Sept. 14).

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