Global Security Newswire

A U.S. Army contractor has ended plans to process a byproduct of neutralized chemical weapons at a Dayton, Ohio, waste treatment facility, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 10).

Parsons Engineering, the contractor in charge of neutralizing the U.S. stockpile of VX nerve agent at Newport, Ind., announced yesterday that Dayton firm Perma-Fix has been “eliminated as an alternative” for disposing of hydrolysate, a neutralization byproduct. Perma-Fix had planned to treat the hydrolysate and then dump the residues into Dayton’s wastewater treatment facilities.

Local officials, however, were demanding more information on the process and insisted that the company resolve previous quality control problems. 

“This stop work order ends our efforts to treat these materials in Dayton,” said Perma-Fix Chief Executive Officer Louis Centofanti.

Representative Mike Turner (R-Ohio) has been protesting the effort for months, and he said that a planned congressional hearing in Dayton would still be held Oct. 22.

The hearing will be held “to give the Dayton community the opportunity to enter into the public record the issues they have faced throughout this process,” Turner said (Associated Press, Oct. 14).