United States:  Army Officials Considering Storing VX Byproduct at Newport Chemical Depot

U.S. Army officials are considering whether to store onsite a chemical byproduct of their efforts to neutralize the deadly nerve agent VX at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 19, 2002).

Parsons Engineering, which built and will operate the Newport depot’s VX disposal plant, has received approval to begin examining the construction of an onsite tank farm to store the hydrolysate byproduct created during VX neutralization, according to Jeff Brubaker, Army site project manager (see GSN, June 18).  While the neutralization is expected to produce about 900,000 gallons of byproduct, the depot only has the capacity to store about 30,000 gallons, AP reported.

The Army, which is set to begin the VX neutralization in October, wants to take the byproduct to a plant in Dayton, Ohio, for further processing, but area residents oppose the plan.  Additional byproduct storage capacity onsite at the depot would allow the disposal effort to continue even if the Dayton treatment plant could not be used, AP reported.

“We are committed to start and complete the destruction of VX as quickly and safely as possible,” Brubaker said (Associated Press/WAVE Television, July 2).

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Russia:  European Union to Provide CW Disposal Equipment Next Year

European Union members are expected to provide Russia with more than $4.5 million worth of engineering and technical equipment next year for Russian chemical weapons storage and disposal facilities, ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday (see GSN, June 10). 

Some of the equipment will be sent to the Gorny chemical weapons disposal plant, said Alexander Kharichev, adviser to the chairman of the Russian State Commission for Chemical Disarmament (ITAR-Tass, JUNE 25 in FBIS-SOV, June 25).

The European Union is currently implementing several programs to aid Russia in disposing of its chemical weapons stockpiles, the Russian Ammunition Agency said Wednesday.

“Russia’s cooperation with the EU in chemical disarmament has been ongoing since 1999 under two programs — Tacis and a joint-action program,” an agency spokesman said.  “A number of projects totaling several million euros are currently being implemented,” the spokesman added.

The Tacis program was responsible for the establishment of an environmental monitoring system in the Saratov region, where the Gorny disposal plant is located, according to Interfax.  In addition, a project in the city of Dzerzhinsk to develop building decontamination technologies and a project in the city of Cheboksary to develop medical and environmental monitoring systems are being implemented through the Tacis program (Interfax, June 25 in FBIS-SOV, June 25).

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