The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won't oppose the U.S. Department of Defense and DuPont Co.'s plan to dump a wastewater byproduct of a deadly nerve agent into the Delaware River.
The agency said it's assured of a safe treatment for up to 4 million gallons of caustic wastewater created in the treatment for VX, a chemical weapon with a pinhead-size potency to kill a human. DuPont is treating VX for disposal at its Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana.
The agent, once neutralized, would be shipped to DuPont's Chambers Works plant in Deepwater, N.J., for discharge into the river.
"EPA believes that all of our previously identified ecological concerns have been resolved," said Walter Mugdan, director of the agency's Environmental Planning and Protection division in New York, in a letter released Friday to CNN and obtained by The News Journal in Wilmington, Del.
The agency's position angers opponents of the disposal plan. They're concerned the wastewater would harm the Delaware, which supplies drinking water to millions. Furthermore, opponents say the EPA's opinion is premature and raises more questions about the wastewater's effects on river health.
The EPA forwarded its findings to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where analysts are considering health risks posed by the Army and DuPont's plan. A final report from the CDC is expected to go to the region's congressional delegations in April. An earlier study by the agency was inconclusive as to the health effects of the discharge.
Tracy Carluccio, a spokeswoman for the Delaware Riverkeeper based in Washington Crossing, criticized the EPA for its action.
"This report [by the EPA] is not conclusive in any way," she said Saturday.
Government officials in both states have said they're concerned that traces of VX and other toxic byproducts would reach the river even after treatment.
Although the EPA found DuPont had proven the discharge would meet federal limits on toxic pollutants, the agency recommended additional work, including studies of fish and other aquatic life before treatment begins. The EPA, New Jersey, DuPont and the Delaware River Basin Commission would collaborate in those studies.
1 comment:
Water is one of the toxic biproducts that result from this activity and it should be noted that literally thousands of people are killed by water every year. This is also known in the industry as "bihydrogen monoxide",. See:http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
for more information. One of the chemist in Illinois that is concerned over our new senators desire to regulate all of us "water producers" as if we were a nuclear facility.
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